


Be Cunning, and Full of Tricks

by ironwreath (broodingmischief)



Series: dungeons & dragons [1]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Assassination, Blood and Violence, Character Death, Developing Friendships, Established Relationship, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Half-Siblings, M/M, Organized Crime, Past Character Death, Personal Growth, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 53
Words: 28,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22795222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broodingmischief/pseuds/ironwreath
Summary: Snippets into Cihro Lanna; half-elf rogue assassin and reluctant weapon of the Clasp. Cheeky bastard, party grandpa. Set in Exandria.Cross posted from Tumblr.Art of Cihro here.
Relationships: Original Character(s)/Original Character(s)
Series: dungeons & dragons [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638913
Kudos: 1





	1. Brand

**Author's Note:**

> [Related works about Kishore, Cihro's goliath monk friendo and fellow party member!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22816777/chapters/54527221)
> 
> Any number between brackets indicates the session the fic takes place around. If there are no brackets, it takes place before or after the game or at an ambiguous point in time between sessions. These ficlets are in chronological order of the game's events and character's lives, not in the order I wrote them. 
> 
> "All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies. And whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first, they must catch you." — Richard Adams, Watership Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro receives the telltale brand of the Clasp.
> 
> cw for branding

Damen led Cihro through the side streets of Emon, his blue and orange tail drifting behind him like a serpent in the water.

The day was bright and sunny with only a few clouds rolling by to occasionally make the sunlight dappled on the pavement. They were in Abdar’s Promenade inside Emon’s towering city walls, close to the east. Cihro was quiet the whole walk, hands shoved into his pockets and head ducked between his shoulders to hide the quivering of his mouth and hands.

“Think you have much growing left in you?” Damen asked, glancing over his shoulder. Cihro puffed out his chest, looking up through his bangs.

“Yeah, I’m five feet now, I’ll probably be really tall.”

Damen snickered, a half hissing-like sound. He was nineteen. If Cihro was basically an adult at fourteen, then Damen was a bonafide grown up.

“Try not to sound too sure,” he said. “If you grow a lot the mark might get stretched.”

Cihro frowned and lifted his head proper. “What?”

“Scars can stretch when you grow,” Damen explained. “It might not, but it’s a possibility.” He gestured to his back. “Mine did, a little.”

“Oh.” Cihro looked down, brows creased. “But I don’t wanna be short. Can’t I wait until I’m fully grown in a few years to get it?”

“No.”

He peered curiously at Damen, leaning forward. “How do you brand scales?”

“Same way you brand skin, but sometimes my scales fall off and I grow new ones. I had to get it redone.” He shrugged. “But like I said, it might not stretch. The artist can tell you more if you’re worried.”

They arrived at a nondescript building with a hanging sign that read _The Inkwell_. Damen paused with his hand on the door, shooting Cihro one last long, searching gaze.

“Are you nervous?” he asked.

“No,” Cihro lied.

Damen smiled. “It’s okay if you’re nervous. It’s a big commitment.”

It wasn’t the commitment, Cihro thought, but the brand itself. The commitment brought a little bubble of excitement to his chest. He was honoured to be wanted by such a big organization, but the brand and the wait leading up to it made him wanna yartz.

“I’m not scared,” Cihro insisted, shoving his fists further into his pockets.

Damen shook his head, exasperated, and wound an arm around his shoulders as he pushed the door inwards. A bell chimed and Damen steered him over to a counter. They passed a few private booths and Cihro spotted hints of people being tattooed inside as they walked.

Damen spoke to the man behind the counter, an older, bigger half-elven man with tattoos coating the entire length of both arms. They exchanged what sounded like a normal conversation to Cihro, but without strictly mentioning the brand or the Clasp the half-elf opened a counter door and beckoned them to follow. He led them to a door at the back, opened it, and motioned for them to go through.

Damen strode past with Cihro in tow and down a small flight of stairs. The temperature dipped. The half-elf didn’t follow. Damen added a second hand to squeeze Cihro’s arm. The shake in Cihro’s hands spread to his chest and threatened to overwhelm his knees, too.

They descended into a dimly lit basement. The space was void of people save for a half-orc woman conversing with a copper dragonborn and a human resting face down on a cot nearby, asleep. The dragonborn was dressed in plain robes while the half-orc wore an apron and gloves, her hair tied back in a tight bun with a few loose strands hanging around her ears. A fireplace lit the gloom with a warm but almost threatening glow.

They turned at their arrival.

“You must be Cihro,” the dragonborn said, regarding him with vibrant orange eyes. “My name’s Adrex, and this is Vela. I’m a cleric, and Vela’ll be the one doing your brand.”

Cihro worked up the courage to wiggle out of Damen’s arm. He didn’t actually know what to say, though, so just nodded.

“Come. Take off your shirt and lie down here.”

Cihro glanced to Damen, who nodded at him. He pulled off his shirt and handed it to him, then approached a stone slab with a blanket tossed over the top. He absently ran a hand over its edge before he hopped up, legs dangling over the side.

Adrex stood in front of him, the red glow of the fire shaping individual scales on his face. He was tall. And scary. Cihro shrunk a bit, eyes falling to the holy symbol on his chest. He didn’t recognize it.

“Do you have any questions?”

Cihro fidgeted. It was stupid to ask, especially so close to the actual thing, but he needed to get some of the thoughts out of his head.

“How much does it hurt?”

Adrex and Vela shared a look, then Adrex chuckled.

“It’s best if you don’t know,” he said.

“More than breaking your ribs?” Cihro asked.

“It depends on the person, but yes, it just might.”

Cihro opened his mouth, then closed it. He’d started with the most painful thing he knew and couldn’t think of what might be worse. He drew up his legs and scooted to lower himself on to his stomach. Damen appeared at his side, his hand sliding into his to squeeze.

“Here,” Adrex said. Cihro tried to look up, but Damen’s free hand pressed into his head and forced it down again, then took whatever was passed to him.

“Okay, Cihro,” Vela started, “this isn’t one press and then it’s over with. It’s done in three steps. Do you think you can handle that?”

“Does it matter?” he asked. “I’ve gotta.”

“You’re right. More of an ‘are you ready’ question, then.”

“I’m ready,” Cihro said in the crackling voice of a young teen decidedly not ready.

He felt something cool and damp swab over the skin between his shoulders, then left to dry. He watched Vela nod and step over to the fire pit, extracting a long metal rod with a curved shape on the end, super-heated yellow and orange like it was pulled straight out of hell. Cihro’s eyes grew wider still, his heart racing so hard and fast he thought it’d move the whole slab.

Damen lowered something in front of his mouth. A cloth.

“Bite on this,” he instructed. Cihro did.

“It’s good you came here,” Vela said, brandishing the rod as she stepped closer. Cihro felt hot already, like his insides were coals. Sweat dripped out from under his hair and over his temple. “Some places do it in one. Looks ugly that way and doesn’t age well, if you ask me. It has to be recognizable, sure, but that doesn’t mean we have to be lazy!”

Cihro squeezed Damen’s hand and clenched his jaw around the cloth, pinching his eyes closed.

“Alright, love. First one. Brace yourself.”

Vela pressed the end of the rod into his spine. Gently, but it didn’t matter; he screamed. Black consumed him.

He woke a few minutes later to a searing pain centered between his shoulder blades that stretched across his entire back. It was a level of hot that almost felt cold.

He’d dropped the cloth and tears streaked his cheeks. As he gasped a breath he caught the scent of burnt flesh, nearly choking him and bringing more tears to his eyes. Damen’s hand still held his, though, so he gave a weak squeeze and the tiniest of whimpers.

“I might do the second in one, actually,” Vela decided, observing. She withdrew, messed around with several other poles sticking out of the fire, and extracted a different rod with a more complexly woven end. She smiled at it.

“Some places have more of an audience, too,” she said. “Damen bringing you here’s given you some privacy.”

Damen scooped up the cloth, beat out the obvious dirt, then tentatively held it in front of Cihro’s mouth again. He bit down with all his might.

“Here goes.”

Cihro thought the outcome might’ve been different. He was stupid. The pain was worse the second time around, layered on top of what he thought was the max amount of pain someone could experience. He grasped on to consciousness only half a second longer, enough to hear the hiss of his own skin, then the world went dark.

He found it harder to wake again, like he was physically fighting off unconsciousness, his eyes heavy with exhaustion and his body weak with shock. The heat in his back, which had spread everywhere now, was joined by a blessed cool. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted Adrex, a hand extended towards him and a golden and white glow surrounding his arm.

“—can stay here until he’s well enough to travel,” he was saying to Damen. He glanced down as Cihro stirred and withdrew his arm, the glow receding and taking its comfort with it. “Do you have a place to stay, young man?”

Cihro swallowed. His mouth was dry and his throat ached and scratched. He wanted to cry, but felt like all of his tears were burned out of him, evaporated.

“Kind of,” he croaked. It dawned on him that if he went home, he’d have to hide this from his mom. She’d stopped waiting up for him since he always came home late, but she never stopped checking up on him in the morning.

At least this injury wasn’t obvious. No black eyes, no bruises, no cuts or scrapes that she could fuss over and then ask where he’d gotten. It wasn’t even an injury, though. It was a symbol he’d willingly subjected himself to.

He was Clasp now.

“He can stay with me if he has to,” Damen said.

Adrex shrugged. “Good enough, and more than some can say. I suppose it’s not really my problem now, anyway.” He set a small tub down by his head. “This cream should help stop it from getting infected. Keep it clean but try not to let it heal too fast, that’s what makes it look bad, or so Vela says.” He looked to Damen. “Damen can help you with all of that.”

Damen laid a hand on top of Cihro’s head, fingers in his hair. He nodded once.

Adrex straightened out his cloak, nodded to Vela, then exited up the stairs and through the door back to the shop. Cihro heard no bell jingle to announce his departure. Had anyone upstairs heard him scream?

Damen drew up a blanket around his waist and sat on the edge of the stone slab next to his head. Over the next few minutes he helped Cihro sit up on the palms of his hands to take a few sips of water. The effort was so much Cihro thought he’d pass out again, any movement of his muscles shooting white-hot pain between his shoulders.

He gratefully laid flat again, shivering from head to toe and sweating like he had a fever. Damen stroked his hair and wiped the sweat from his brow with a fresh cloth.

“Go ahead and nap if you want,” he said. “I’ll walk you home or to my place whenever you’re ready.” He leaned in closer, his lips pulling back in a toothy smile. “You did it. You’re one of us, Cihro.”

“I’m with the Clasp,” he whispered. It felt better saying it out loud, made it realer. Hopefully in time the reward would make up for the pain. He was sure of it.

For now, he nestled closer to Damen’s side and slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rolled two con saves with no bonus to see if Cihro could stay conscious. He rolled a 4 and a 9. 😂


	2. Divided

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro runs from his mother after seeing her on a date with Day’s father, Osswald.

Cihro couldn’t bring himself to go home.

He gnashed his teeth and stormed off in no obvious direction. His mom followed at first, her date hot on her heels, so he broke into a sprint and lost them in the alleys of Emon. He couldn’t believe the nerve of - was _he_ going to stay at their house? Or would she be absent and stay at his, leaving their home dark and empty?

His feet, by memory, lead him to Damen’s. He stood fuming at the front door, shaking fists and his hair standing up on end. He took a few deep breaths and released the tension in his hands before he willed himself to knock.

When the familiar blue dragonborn opened the door to peer at him curiously, his anger melted off him and welled up in his throat. He launched himself at Damen and burst into tears. 

“Oh, Cihro,” Damen said, startled but quickly patting his hair and ushering him inside. He closed the door and bundled him into a hug, tail and all. “What happened?”

Cihro explained in gasps between sobs. His mom having lunch with a human man, holding hands. The argument out in the plaza. How unfair it was. He felt stupid for crying, but he couldn’t control the tears or just the overwhelming amount of _ache_ in his heart. It was like all the numbness he’d felt at his father’s passing was making up for lost time and catching up with him all at once.

He knew how long elves lived. For his mom to move on so quickly after his dad’s death hurt in a way he couldn’t describe. 

Damen listened. “I’m sorry,” he said eventually. Cihro’s sobs slowed enough that he let go and passed him a handkerchief. “That is unfair.” 

Cihro wiped his nose and dabbed at his eyes. “Can I stay here?”

“Yes, of course, but will your mother worry? Will she look for you?”

Cihro glowered into the floor. “Let her. She obviously doesn’t care what I think or how I feel.” He sulked over to the couch and threw himself on to it. “There are a million houses in Emon, she won’t find me here.”

“And if she does?”

“Just say I’m not here. You’re good at lying.”

Damen smiled. “Alright, fair enough. You’ve already made yourself comfortable, I’ll make some tea.” He strolled by. “I have to go out to the rings later. I don’t want to leave you here alone, will you join me?”

Cihro grabbed a pillow and wrapped himself around it. He wanted to stay on the couch indefinitely, but Damen sounded like he wouldn’t accept a no.

“Sure.”

“Good. It’ll help take your mind off your mom.”

Cihro buried his face in the cushion. He wanted to scream. Maybe he could, later, if he was a spectator.

Maybe if he fought in the pits he could earn some real bruises and make his mother _really_ worry, but he shook his head. The thought of seeing her face so soon, no matter its expression, filled him with rage and grief. He just needed space.

He couldn’t remember being this angry in his whole life. He didn’t want to be mad. A part of him missed being numb, but when he was detached it was difficult for his mother to reach him. Her words, her touch, it all felt like it was bouncing off a shell. Now that she'd done this it felt like she'd finally reached him, but in the worst way possible. 

The Clasp made him think, made him feel, made him feel like he had a purpose and something to works towards again. They were a community for him that respected his nascent talent.

He blinked awake at a hand shaking his shoulder. A tea cup sat on the coffee table in front of him but it looked cold and miserable. For one glorious moment he was free of emotion, floating on the remnants of sleep, then it all came crashing back on him and he grimaced. 

“Time to go,” Damen said with a knowing smile, tweaking his chin. “You fell asleep.” 

Cihro took his hand and followed. 


	3. Divided pt.2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro runs into his mother after fleeing.

Cihro returned to his house a few days after his fight with his mother. He stayed with Damen in the in-between but heard the beck and call of his belongings and begrudgingly slunk his way back. He had stayed overnight at Damen’s in the past, but never for more than a single evening.

Cihro arrived late, the streets barren of people. The moons were only missing a sliver of their full selves, like platters of silver illuminating his path.

He hoped against hope he’d picked one of the four hours where his mother tranced. If her date or whatever he was to her – gross – was staying with her, there was a good chance she was sleeping like all non-elves did. The thought stirred up his anger and he quickly shoved it into a box. If he was quiet enough she wouldn’t hear him, conscious or not, and they could avoid seeing each other.

He unlocked the front door and closed it gently behind him, then crept to his room. He’d practised and knew where all the squeakiest floorboards were, so he thought he did a decent job. There were no candles lighting the space, but he perceived the world as black and white.

He eked into his room, the door left ajar. He paused in the entry, his heart thickening in his chest. He would’ve loved nothing more than to collapse face first onto his bed and pretend like nothing had ever happened. The house had a smell, one he’d never noticed before, something like a cross between evergreens, spruce, and violin strings. Is that what he smelled like when he left?

He shook himself out of it and dumped his bag on the bed, blocking himself from the temptation. He turned for his dresser and started when he saw his mother silhouetted in the doorway, a hand on the knob and her eyes wide.

He swore under his breath. He either wasn’t as good at sneaking as he thought or she had the ears of an owl.

“Cihro?” she asked, reaching for him. He backed up. “Where have you been?”

“I’m just,” he started, but his voice caught, his heart interrupting him. “I’m here for my things.”

The look of hurt on her face made Cihro feel both horrible and vindicated. She looked to his bag, then aside, drawing out a match to light the candle on his dresser and casting them in a warm pond of colour and light. When she locked him in her gaze again, the hurt was traded for determination, and he felt trapped under her verdant green eyes.

“Why?” she asked. “This is your home.”

He swallowed. “It doesn’t feel like it.”

“Of course it doesn’t, you haven’t been here. I never see you.”

Cihro wrinkled his nose. “This place has never felt like home.”

She approached again, more cautiously. He continued to back up but his shoulders rubbed up against the wall. He felt the tingling reminder of his brand. One hand cupped his face, soft as the brush of a leaf, and the other rested on his shoulder, firm. He closed his eyes, fighting the urge to lean into her touch, familiar from birth and soothing no matter how much anger he mustered up.

“I’ve been so worried,” she said. “Please, can we talk?”

A part of him wanted to say yes, but he was still livid and hurt. His emotions collided and fought with each other, all screaming to be heard. He pulled her hand away from his face and squeezed past her, yanking open his dresser drawers and tossing clothes into his bag. He grabbed a handful of his jewelry and rammed it into one of the side pockets.

“Cihro, please,” she said. “I know you’re hurting but I can’t help you understand if you don’t talk to me.”

“What’s there to understand?” he asked hollowly. He knew he was being petulant, but he felt like he’d lost control of his rationality. Being angry was easier, a protective coat. “I don’t think you understand that I wanna be left alone right now.”

“Being left alone and running off are two different things,” she said. He felt her gaze pricking his back and face, but she seemed to respect the bubble he threw up for now, skirting just on the outside. “Do you have friends you’re staying with?”

Cihro pursed his lips. She was allowed to know he wasn’t sleeping on the street, at least. “Yeah, I do.”

“What are they like?”

Cihro glared at her, icy. “Since when have you cared about who I hang out with?”

“Since always. Maybe I haven’t expressed that interest well enough, but—” She pinched the bridge of her nose with a world-weary sigh, then lowered it while Cihro continued to pack his bag lightning fast. “Will you stay if I make some tea? Or can you come back and we can talk later, after you’ve had a breather? In the morning?”

He almost heard a note of desperation in her voice. He packed as rapidly as he could, but it made him clumsy, hands shaking. He would miss things and that meant making multiple trips. So be it. 

“I’ve already had my breather over the last few days and I’ve made up my mind.”

The hurt returned. He felt her hand on his shoulder again, sturdy and squeezing, pleading. “Cihro, I at least want to have a chance to talk with you before you make a decision. I don’t want to – I don’t want to lose you, too.”

It was like she passed the hurt through her touch and the pain of her years greatly exceeded his, overwhelming him. He shrugged out of her grasp – or tried to. Her hand lifted briefly, then landed back on his shoulder, unwavering. He felt the slightest tug, trying to urge him to face her, but not forcing.

“Is the human here?” he asked, going for a different angle, trying to keep the waver out of his voice.

“No.” She shifted her weight, hand sliding to between his shoulders, fingers pointed up near the back of his neck, almost like she wanted to adjust his collar. “He’s worried about you too, you know. He feels partially responsible for you running off.”

Cihro scoffed. “That doesn’t even cover half of it. He doesn’t know me, and I don’t know him. He doesn’t get to care about me.”

“But he does. Whether or not you give someone permission to care about you, they will. He’s heard a lot about you.”

Cihro whirled on her, batting her arm aside with the back of his wrist. “How? How could you after—” He steeled himself, breathing in and out sharply. He continued to gesticulate wildly, trying to form his feelings out of thin air until he eventually threw his fists to his sides. “How come you get to decide when we move on and I don’t?”

Her brows knotted. “I don’t, Cihro. That’s for you to decide – and I can help, and I want to, but I can only help as much as you’ll let me. Dating doesn’t necessarily mean I’ve fully moved on, only that I’m ready to start that part of the healing process. Grief is easier when it’s shared with others.”

“Then why not share it with _me_?” Cihro asked, stabbing a finger at himself.

“I’ve been _trying_ ,” she cried, almost breathless, hands sweeping gestures as well. “You’ve been taking it all on by yourself. I think it’s less important that I share my grief with you and more that you lean on me.”

“What are you trying to do?” Cihro accused. “Forget my dad? Replace him?”

“No, Cihro, never. There’s no replacement for your dad, and I’ll never forget him.”

“Tell it to someone who believes it,” Cihro muttered, turning to seal up his bag and sling it over his shoulder. “I’m going.”

She caught his arm, her grip like steel this time. “Cihro,” she begged again. “Please.”

The tears gathered in his throat finally broke through his eyes, coating them. He blinked, felt them collect on his lashes and spill over as he squeezed them closed. He knew that if he looked at her again, his resolve would break. She’d win.

“Let go, mom.”

Her fingers twitched, and then, achingly slow, she did. Just before her grip fully went lax he jerked his arm free and bolted for the door and out of the house, eyes trained on the ground.

Chandrelle could have fought him and won, easily, but she let him go. 


	4. Gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set during the Chroma Conclave arc, Cihro finds a lucky gold piece on the sidewalk and meets some goliaths.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aka "how Cihro got that scar on his forehead."

Cihro almost missed it.

Sunlight filled his vision for less than a second, but it was enough for him to slow his careful step through the abandoned streets of Westruun. His scouting party continued ahead of him, none the wiser. He looked. Across the street, in the gutter and out of the safety of the shadows laid a single gold piece.

He perked up. His pouch was light with only silver and copper, and neither of the two in abundance. He glanced back at his party. A kobold at the rear turned and waved for him to continue following. Cihro strained his ears and heard the tell-tale heavy footfalls and grunts of goliaths in conversation. He couldn’t make out their exact distance and didn’t know a word of giant, but the fact that he could hear them at all meant they were too close.

He looked back to the piece, dirtied by grime and dust and even spilled blood, but still bright enough to have caught his eye. He liked to think he wasn’t greedy. This was more a symbol of hope, that civilization and currency could exist after the Herd of Storms and an ancient black dragon razed the town. He looked back to the kobold, signaled for them to continue, and darted out of the alley.

It was stupid and reckless and deeply unlike him, but if he didn’t find joy in something, he’d sooner die in spirit than in body. He arrived at the gutter, plucked up the coin, and was mid-turn when he heard a shout. A large, hulking figure materialized in front of him. Even standing on his toes, Cihro would’ve only reached the bottom of their chest. He gulped and waved at them, depositing the gold piece into a pouch behind his back.

“Afternoon,” he said, crouched like a racer. “Don’t mind me.”

They didn’t deign him a reply. He heard the whistle of air from an axe and instinctively bent backwards. Something cold whipped by his eyebrow, followed by a splash of blood. His hair rustled with the force. He bolted, a sword hurtling above him as he ducked and weaved back whence he came. 

When he reached the alley again his left eye had filled with blood and he stumbled into a wall. It took him half a second to wipe it, get his bearings, then continue at a full sprint, his hood flying off his head and javelins clattering at his heels. He knew these alleys better than the herd. They couldn’t keep pace with him as he dashed around corners, scampered up a building, rolled into an open attic window and flattened himself against the floor behind some crates.

He heard them arguing in common a couple blocks away. “Where’d he go?!”

“How could you lose him?!”

“He’s so tiny, s’like trying to catch a flea, how can you expect me t—”

Their voices faded until nothing but his own breathing and the creak of the house remained. He laid still as a cadaver for a moment, pressing the cloth of his glove against his face. Blood poured over his temple. They’d nicked him good, but only that. He sat up and quickly fashioned a bandage from his scarf to tide him over until he could make it back to the Clasp.

He was lucky. An encounter with the Herd of Storms usually meant more than a scratch.

He pulled the gold piece from his pouch and rubbed it smooth with his thumb. A symbol of hope, and now, a symbol of good fortune and his ability to survive. He smiled, pocketed it, and slipped out the side of the building. 


	5. Raze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro revisits Emon after the Chroma Conclave's defeat.

Emon looked like a fire that was only just put out.

It gave Cihro a fraction of an understanding of what it must’ve looked like under siege. He’d heard reports through the Clasp, but to see it himself – it was over a month since the Cinder King fell from his throne and the city still smelled like smoke.

He hopped off his horse and left it with the stable boys by the eastern gates. He left at a jog, the pavement warm under his boots, and not entirely from the sun. One person, one place plagued his mind while Umbrasyl and the Herd of Storms forced him to hide underground and wait out the conflict.

Entire blocks were razed. Landmarks that were once familiar were melted or dented in. It took him an extra hour of an exhausting trip to find his old home – not just because of the sheer size of Emon, but because he passed so many wrecked people. Their exhaustion was as palpable as the sweat on their brows and he carried it with him. It made hell look like a birthday party.

The vestiges of a building remained. Colour from the bricks and wood were gone, replaced by a corpse grey flecked with black and white. If he stepped inside, there was no reason it wouldn’t collapse on his head. He shuffled in place, feeling like it already had, or should.

Chandrelle was most likely missing or dead. He didn’t know why he’d be an exception, not when he’d lived life the way he had. People more and less destitute had lost their livelihood and loved ones, and he’d given up his family well before dragons rained fire, acid, and frost down on the continent. Was he allowed to grieve? Was twenty-four too old to be an orphan?

“Cihro,” a voice rose behind him. He whirled, a hand on the hilt of his shortsword, but Damen approached, hands raised in placation. “You made it.”

Cihro’s hand slid from his weapon. “How’d you—?”

“Word spreads fast, Cihro. We were waiting for you.”

Cihro sprung into a hug with him. Damen’s head rested neatly on his, arms reaching around him and holding him in like a barrel. They stayed like that for a minute – Cihro couldn’t remember the last time he’d hugged someone outside of companionship.

They separated slowly and half-turned to the house, arms still joined.

“I’m so sorry,” Damen whispered.

“I wasn’t here,” Cihro said. “I should be sorry. Did she even live here anymore? Did you keep an eye on her?”

“I tried, but – the Clasp might know more. It’s a big city, and with the Conclave—” He shook his head. “I could barely keep track of my tail. We were busy.”

Cihro slid his arms free to wrap them around himself. Ancient dragons, loss that couldn’t be measured, the Clasp – he was miniscule, one more voice added to the concert of people in mourning. Damen’s hand found his shoulder.

“Did it ever do you any good?” Damen asked. “What I mean is – you spent more time with us. Was it ever a home to you?”

Cihro considered, gaze numb and absorbing the house as a whole. He didn’t need to see the details to know it was a burnt out husk. He hadn’t wanted to move to Emon, no, but he could have tried a little harder to start a new life. But then, that wasn’t what Damen wanted – they wanted the version of Cihro that accepted the Clasp for help.

“I dunno. But she was my mom, regardless of where she was.”

“We don’t have a definitive answer yet.”

“I’m not getting my hopes up.” He glanced left to right, gesturing to the block. “Call me a pessimist, but I think I’d be disappointed.”

“I guess events like this have a way of making us rethink our priorities.” Damen squeezed his shoulder, once but firm. “I’ll help you find your answers. In the meantime, come with – let’s get you caught up. The Clasp has a lot of fresh blood.”


	6. Seen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro meets Dayereth for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set about a year before the campaign begins.

Cihro noticed him straightaway. He thought he must’ve had the wrong tavern at first, this bard fellow in the middle of a Clasp meetup. His colours were bright and conflicted with the sea of greys, blacks, browns, and muted greens. He wore a big hat and poncho instead of a hood and cloak and there were enough instruments strapped to him to make up an entire stage band. There was something in his face that seemed too harmless and young for someone with the Clasp, like he wasn't indoctrinated yet.

Then again, neither was Cihro, he liked to think, and he’d been with them for thirty years. It was possible. There was also the possibility he was just an extremely practised liar and the harmless look was part of an act.

He was short. He wasn’t the shortest, not by far given there were a couple gnomes, halflings, and even a goblin or two, but among the medium sized races, he was short. Cihro watched as people paired or tripled up and exited the tavern to make for the Crystalfen Caverns. He watched this other half-elf hide below the brim of his hat and look despondent as the tavern emptied without anyone paying him any mind.

Cihro knew how it was. His height, while trying to blend in, was one of his greatest advantages. He was easy to miss in a crowd, but he suspected this person didn’t want that. He wanted to be seen and be heard. But in standing out against the Clasp’s unofficial dress code and in looking like an average person on the street, he wasn’t.

It almost made Cihro laugh. He seemed like the kind of guy who wouldn’t know what to do with the attention once he won it. And maybe his analysis was off the mark, but there was only one way to know for sure. He meandered over once everyone left, hands clasped behind his back. He’d made his choice from the start.

“Guess it’s just you and me,” he said. 


	7. Brother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro’s initial thoughts after he and Day realize they're half brothers.

> “Why didn’t she tell me about you?”
> 
> “Why didn’t she tell me about _you_?”

A brother. A brother! Cihro wasn’t sure if he was light-headed from blood loss or the realization that he had a sibling.

He leaned back against the stone cavern wall, its surface blessedly cool against the still-warm blood drenching his shirt. He wasn’t bleeding anymore, at least not a scary amount. Dayereth - his brother! - was responsible for mending the worst of the damage with magic infused words of inspiration. He said it’d scar, but at least now it wasn’t going to be a mangled mess.

He could practically see their thoughts swimming around their heads amid the dark while they caught their breath from the gibbering mouther fight. It was a valid question: why _didn't_ their mother tell him about Dayereth’s birth or tell Day about Cihro?

Cihro could guess, but it made his heart twist into a pretzel. Their mother was either bitter about Cihro fading into the distance or protecting Dayereth somehow. His old anger at her remarrying almost resurfaced but he quickly squashed it under heel. He couldn’t fault her for that. She more or less lost her son, he didn’t blame her for wanting another.

But if she’d told him about Day, he might have come back. He might have swallowed his pride, shunted his resentment, and stepped out of the shadows.

He didn’t know how he would have reacted twenty-eight years ago, but it was a solid guess. How old was he twenty-eight years ago? He couldn’t math it out even without being injured. He used the wall to help clamber to his feet and the two of them painstakingly picked their way back to the Clasp with what little, hard-fought suude they had in hand.

An unspoken understanding followed them. They would talk further on the surface, preferably over drinks, try and assemble a puzzle that made sense with pieces from two separate stories. While a large part of him felt bewildered and stunned, he also felt a certain peace to it all – like wherever he went from here on out, he’d have company.


	8. Closure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro speaks at his father's grave in Terrah.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “When someone leaves your life, those exits are not made equal. Some are beautiful and poetic and satisfying; others are abrupt and unfair; but most are unremarkable, unintentional and clumsy.” — Griffin McElroy, the Adventure Zone

Cihro knelt to the stone. The plane was worn smooth from walking, but pebbles still scattered the surface. It was cool under his knees and he rested his hands on his thighs, massaging them.

He heard the crunch of more stone from Day behind him to his right. Talsin hovered further back, to his left. He stared at the small, neat stack of rocks in front of him, imbued with magic to stay upright and the name of his father carved in common and Terran. He traced it with his fingers. He already felt the anxious swell of his heart in his chest, threatening to choke him.

“What do I say?” he asked.

“Anything,” Day responded. “Whatever feels right.”

Easy for the musician to say, he thought, but closed his eyes and concentrated.

“It doesn’t have to be pretty,” Day elaborated. “Y’know, whatever you say, if it comes from the heart and makes you feel better, it’s fine.”

“Is that what you did at mom’s memorial?”

He didn’t have to open his eyes to know Day was fidgeting with his shirt. “Yeah,” he said eventually, almost too softly to hear. “That, and, well, music. Music is easier. Maybe not for everyone, but for me—anyway, yeah. Just try it.”

“Okay.”

He took a deep breath. “Hi,” he said, and winced. Gods, he was talking to rubble. He cleared his throat and lowered his head.

“I’m, uh, a lot older now. I’m sorry I haven’t visited. Uhm. It’s a long way here from anywhere.” He reached up to pinch his eyes. He could already feel tears gathering and he felt inexplicably embarrassed. He’d wept in front of both Talsin and Day before, but this time it felt more personal, more intense and vulnerable. With his mother he sorted out his grief quickly. With his father, it was a lifetime of build-up and hurt executed in poor decisions that he was still shackled with the consequences of today.

“I’m..sorry mom couldn’t be here. Dunno where she is. I hope that, uh, wherever she is, she can appreciate that I’m here. And I hope that you can appreciate that she moved on better than I did.” He paused. “She even gave me a brother.”

He sniffed and wiped at his nose, but barrelled on, not wanting to overthink. “I’m..I dunno. I miss you. I catch myself thinking ‘Gods, if only dad were here for this,’ but then I realize most of what I’m doing I wouldn’t be doing if you were still here. Or maybe I would. I dunno.” He rested his forearm over his eyes, his voice growing thick. “I don’t think you’d be proud of what I’m doing. But I hope that even with the things I’m forced to do, I’m still channelling the best of you that I can.

“I’m scared I’m gunna forget you, or that I already have, and my perception of you is skewed somehow, cuz I only knew you as a kid. Does that make sense?” He opened his eyes and looked over his shoulder at Day. “I’m not making any sense.”

Day waved a hand at him to continue.

Cihro sighed and bowed his head. He thought longer this time, conjuring up what he did remember of his father: his laugh, his hair, the jingling of his jewellery, the soft fur of a creature he’d transformed into comforting him at his bedside. The raw, pure energy of him, as if whenever he left the earth elemental plane he took some its constant movement with him.

“I guess I’m here to say goodbye?” He balled his fists in his lap. “Like a proper goodbye, and not the hasty one when mom and I left. I didn’t understand at the time. I’m sorry.”

He waited, tapping a finger against his leg. The wind stilled, the thickness of the silence absorbing his words. He heard his heart in his ears, his head and his face felt hot. Dayereth and Talsin didn’t move.

“How will I know if it worked?” he asked hoarsely.

“I don’t think it’s instantaneous. Just focus on how you feel.”

Cihro did. He felt warmth spread from his toes to his knees to his chest to meet his head, as if the core of the planet itself reached for him with its molten fingers. A brusque wind swept in and carried the warmth with it, leaving him cool and refreshed. Better, somehow. Not wholly, but as if whatever tangled weave in his chest had caught loose in the wind and was beginning to unravel. Slowly at first, but then alarmingly fast.

He stood and wobbled, knees quaking. Talsin’s hand caught his shoulder, steadied him, and squeezed. Cihro hadn’t heard him move, but recognized his grip. He turned and unceremoniously buried himself in his chest to cry. Dayereth’s arms reached around the both of them and squished him between them.

He smiled through his tears. It was a cry of sorrow, but also one of relief.


	9. Ties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro and Dayereth visit Syngorn and learn about their older half-sister.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set about several months before the beginning of the campaign.

Cihro learned two things in Syngorn. One, he hated elves. Two, he had a sister.

Cihro was slow to anger. He could handle the names, the stares, the sneers, and the scorn. He wasn’t used to it, but he took it in stride. He knew that even if he was taller, faster, more charismatic, and more skilled with the bow, he would never live up to their expectations.

It took one look at Dayereth to make his blood boil. His brother was in tears. He pulled his hat further over his ears and flinched at every name like it was a rock hurled at him. Neither of them had their ears exposed, but the elves smelled the human in them. Their eyes narrowed at Cihro’s scruff and they stretched above them like the ancient trees that wreathed the city. Cihro and Day carried themselves with the imprint of other races with no trace of their elven grace or self-importance. The elves knew outsiders in and out.

Cihro saw it wring the hope out of Day. He wondered if coming to Syngorn was a mistake.

He’d see it through, though, and spearheaded the talking. But before long they were escorted from the city by the guard, their sister marching behind them. She was everything that made the elves great compiled into a single person and everything that he and his brother weren’t. She looked so much like their mother it infuriated him. How could someone who looked so much like her have so much cruelty in them?

The proverbial gates were slammed in their faces outside the city. Cihro pulled Day into a hug, cradling the back of his head while his brother soaked his clothes with tears. He felt Day’s legs want to give out on him but Cihro walked them away from the gates. Every step further from Syngorn was a blessing. The guard’s eyes watched their backs.

Cihro reassured him with his words as best he could, but it only helped so much. He shook. He’d only known Dayereth for a year now but he had all the protectiveness of someone who’d known him for ten. It scared him a little, but he ushered his emotions into action.

Cihro never had much faith in finding their mother, but Day made him want to believe. He glared over his shoulder. Now he saw why she’d left at all.

He made an addendum to his thoughts. He didn’t hate elves, never had, never would. He didn’t hate his mother, and he didn’t hate that part of himself. He just hated seeing Day cry. 


	10. Daughter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro does some recon on Sergeant Corsun, a target set by the Clasp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cihro's nickname for Day is Diddy.

[24]

Sergeant Corsun had a daughter.

Cihro pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. He wasn't sure if it was a son or daughter, exactly, but it was a child all the same. Couldn’t be older than ten.

He couldn’t help but imagine himself at ten, his mother’s hand squeezing his shoulder in an iron grip as the headmaster of the Earth Ashari explained the landslide. Worse yet, he imagined little Diddy at eight, his hair a lighter blonde but dotted with ash and debris. He envisioned his younger brother staggering through the destroyed and blackened streets of Emon, crying out for parents no longer there.

He recalled the face of his brother now, eyes wide and aghast at the thought of Cihro murdering one man. There was no way Cihro could tell him about the girl. He would find out eventually, but he didn't need to hear it from Cihro.

He opened his eyes. The candlelight still flickered in the window and highlighted the little form asleep on the bed. If Cihro squinted he could see the gentle rise and fall of their chest in sleep. He thought of it rising and falling more rapidly with sobs at the news of their father’s death. 

He steeled himself. He couldn’t think about robbing her of her father, knowing what it felt like to be robbed prematurely of his own. At least he wasn't making her an orphan, he thought. At least, not if he could help it.

Cihro had killed parents in the past, and he would again. His blade was rarely his own. He nodded to himself, slipped over the side of the roof, and descended back into the empty streets of Westruun.


	11. Youth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro reflects on time and youth after spontaneously aging to a ghost.

[33]

There was never a point Cihro felt his age. He was forty-five, appeared thirty, and pranced around with the ease of someone in their twenties. Then it struck him like hooves in the chest. Beleaguered by visions of his father’s corpse and having the wind knocked out of him, he staggered back, dropping his bow and swiping at air. Then, without warning, the images vanished, the fight a wrap. The fatigue remained and he leaned against the tree with a hand to catch his breath.

Hair swept past his face and bunched up in his hood and his breath tickled a thick beard. He’d grown one in the past, but he never loved it. There reached a point where it messed with his archery. His hair was once longer, too, but never past his ears. What the hell?

Caius was far worse off. Hope, it was difficult to say. He looked and sounded like he’d aged more on account of hitting a growth spurt. Cihro knew he was young, but never expected that much growing left in him. Everyone else was fine, if not bewildered and concerned.

Caius and Hope needed attention first. They were both young and their differences were stark; those years needed living. Caius sounded downright winded.

Cihro couldn’t tell how much he’d aged. He didn’t have a mirror but caught his reflection in the windows they passed, and the beard and hair length left him mystified. He knew for the next twenty to thirty years he would look and feel the same if, job be willing, he survived that long and whatever in the tunnels below the farmhouse didn’t kill them.

The Mother’s Grove brought him some comfort, but the image of his father bludgeoned to death resurfaced and he swallowed. He could accept that he’d aged, but he couldn’t help the relief that washed over him at the ten years restored, the diamond dust settling at his feet. It was ten years he could spend with Talsin and it was ten years he could spend with Day. So much had happened in just one.

It was ten years he could try and make friends, he thought, looking to Kishore and Hope. And with a partner who would exceed his life and a brother who could match it, he wanted to cherish every moment.


	12. Daughter pt.2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro kills Sergeant Corsun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for heavy drinking at the end

[34]

Cihro slumped against the door to his room. He squeezed the locket in his hand hard enough to leave an imprint and his breath came in shallow bursts from his run.

He’d done it. Sergeant Corsun was dead. His blood stained his daggers and he could still feel the weight of his corpse in his arms as he lowered him to the floor. His plan didn’t exactly go off without a hitch, but he was almost grateful for that. He heard the shriek of his wife from over a block away, he couldn’t imagine hearing it closer or the wails of his daughter had Corsun died from the poison in his bed.

He pushed himself from the door and deposited the locket on his desk. He removed and washed off his disguise, cleaned his daggers, but it was all muscle memory; his brain and his heart were distant from his body.

He avoided the trinket until he was cleaned and sorted, then scooped it up. On the back read ‘My love eternal.’ He held it away from his body as he cracked it open as if he could distance himself from whatever laid within.

Inside was a painting of their newborn daughter, rosy-cheeked and smiling, and beside it, another painting of the happy couple holding their darling child. He swallowed. They were one of a kind, not replicas. If anyone saw him with these, they’d know who was responsible. Mechanically, without thinking, he reached for his knife and gently removed the paintings.

He thought he’d feel relieved when it was over, but all he felt was a squeeze around the fringes of his chest, as if his ribs were pressing inwards. He pinched both pictures between his finger and thumb and held them towards a candle. He hesitated. No amount of guilt would change what he’d done. He had to get rid of the evidence. He’d already plunged his blade into Corsun, why did this have to be worse? 

He forced his hand. The flame caught the corner of the parchment, then ate away at their portraits until nothing remained. He stood quiet for a moment, the weight of his choice filling the room like smoke, then rising up to press down on him.

He reached for his bag and removed the stolen whiskey. He took a big swig, then another, again until he felt his ache give way to a pleasant buzz. He held out the glass bottle a moment, considered, then tipped it to pour a little on to his floor.

“Sorry, Serg,” he whispered. Sorry Dayereth, he thought. Sorry father, sorry Swords, sorry Caius and Aritian; but most of all, sorry to Corsun’s daughter.


	13. Hurdle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro’s feelings while going through the underdark to rescue his drow partner, Talsin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally in three parts, but I merged them altogether here!

[38]

Once Barnok showed him the vision, they didn’t stop.

They were less visions and more nightmares. Cihro’s had plenty of nightmares before. For weeks following his and Day’s encounter with the gibbering mouther, he dreamt of having his arm torn off by its teeth, his heart getting pierced, or being consumed whole. That wasn’t even touching on what he dreamt about while Umbrasyl squatted in the nearby mountains, but eventually they ebbed away into his regularly scheduled dreaming.

Now, his mind replayed what Barnok showed him. A yawning portal, a blade to Talsin’s throat, and eldritch abominations he’d never be able to conjure up with his imagination alone. The static in the air made his hair stand up on end. But they worsened to the blade actually cutting into his throat, to Talsin taking the shape of what his mother was; someone with the torso of an elf and the body of a massive spider with eyes that no longer recognized him. A stinger speeding towards his neck.

He'd wake up in a sweat, the covers tangled around him like a web. The shadows of the room felt alive and he'd untangle himself and cocoon again, drawing the blanket over his head. If it was really bad, he’d light himself a candle. He lamented that Talsin wasn’t there, but felt closer to him. Was this his life at night? Maybe in Talsin’s absence the nightmares had picked Cihro as their new target.

Despite the horror of it all, he wasn’t afraid. At least, not for himself. He took solace in the fact that the vision wasn’t for certain, just a prediction if they didn’t intervene. He was quick, and his love made him fearless in a way he wasn’t used to. The underdark wasn’t a place anymore, it was an obstacle between him and Talsin that he’d readily hurdle over.

* * *

[42]

Cihro was learning a lot of new words. Ettercap. Duergar. Drider. Svirfneblin.

Death tyrant.

As it turned out, the underdark wasn't one single hurdle, but a series of them laid out before him over hills upon hills. His friends raced beside him, but some stumbled and fell, including himself.

The fear he thought he had in check crept up his spine. They were what, maybe a few hours into the underdark, and a death tyrant was what lived just past the doorstep? He couldn’t conceive what kind of horrors lived deeper in and he didn’t have to wonder long. They greeted him in the form of an empty, bloodied battlefield between four cults and a purple mist that left his brother in hysterics and him apparently having stared at a wall for five minutes.

They fought more abominations he didn’t have names for, scorpions with bird heads and pincers for arms. Barnok didn’t give them the words. They died all the same.

It was like he was on a different planet, the stone, the water running through it, and his companions being the only things he knew. They were pushing themselves to avoid sleeping in the mystery fog and it didn’t even matter. The effects choked them anyway, striking Caius, who started hyperventilating. Aritian healed him, but it dawned on Cihro that it didn’t matter if they slept in it or not. The fog would sink into their system just for sharing its space.

He looked to his party. Some of them were dragging their feet, the lines under their eyes more pronounced. Some were aggravated and probably wondering if they could leave despite the threat of Lolth looming. He felt a pang of guilt. He was partially responsible for them coming, and definitely responsible for the exhaustion from pushing themselves. Time was ticking. But didn’t they all have a part to play in preventing a cataclysm for the land they lived on?

He was selfish, he knew. He was here for Talsin, Lolth be damned. He wanted Kishore to have a future for her family and for Hope to grow into the body they saw and for Day to thrive, but he knew where his core motivation came from. 

He rubbed his arms. He had to ignore the memory of the monsters and focus on the face of who brought him here. He had to emerge out the other side to meet him. The hurdles were harder to jump with each one they passed, and his foot would catch and he’d turn back to help his brother stand, but he wouldn’t – couldn’t – stop.

* * *

[45]

The nightmares stopped.

In all honesty, none of them compared to the reality of what they’d lived through. Nightmares were nightmares. There was an element to them that was his imagination running arm in arm with his paranoia and was only partially steeped in reality. The vision was the worst possible outcome, sure, but dreams were vague and clouded in fog. He could only dream up what he knew and the underdark proved he knew nothing.

They’d all survived. He could replace what-ifs with the image of his friends beating Amadra to shit, Day’s healing aura, and Talsin’s binds dropping free and him casting what Cihro assumed was powerful magic. To finally, his own dagger landing square between her eyes through the back of her skull. What happened after was doubly chaotic, but also kind of not their problem.

He'd seen a goddess. Had he seen two? Lolth, and Mirella. He couldn't wrap his head around the scope of it. He looked to his friends, his partner, his brother, and the sting of his wounds when Day gathered him and Talsin in a hug to ground himself in reality.

When he slept that night, he slept close to Talsin. He lent him his bedroll and slept on the ground beside him with his back turned, their shoulders touching, just enough to feel his breathing. Safe. Alive.

And he’d do it all again to keep it that way.


	14. Rival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro reflects on M, fellow assassin and Sean’s former apprentice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for vomiting

[53]

Cihro toyed with the ornate knife M had stabbed into his bed. He sat on Day’s bunk, his back reclined against the wall with one leg outstretched and the other bent. Day fell asleep again, not with a book on his face but with his chin on his violin’s rest, the bow held loosely in his fingers. Cihro had removed the instrument, tucked him in, then stayed up to collect his thoughts. 

He went to bed drunk, but having some bloodthirsty chick hover over him and monologue about killing him was a pretty sobering experience. 

He had a few recurring thoughts while she was in his room. _Don’t kill me. Get off me. Your dagger is under the pillow. If you move, she will kill you._ And then, nauseously, as she unstraddled him and left, _I’m too gay for this._

Every time she moved, he resisted tensing, flinching, or lunging for his dagger. His fight or flight response wailed in his head like the screech of a banshee. He figured that even with paralysis his breathing would stutter, but he somehow kept his wits about him. He had always worked well under pressure. 

Harder still was controlling his tongue. She’d been close enough to his face that he felt her breath, so clenching his jaw was out of question, so he bit the tip of his tongue between his teeth. He desperately wanted to see her reaction if he gave a quip for her to see that he was in control of the situation, but both his fear and his gut told him to zip it. So he did. The quiet always served him.

After explaining the situation to Dayereth, he was tense enough to be used as a support beam. While Day filled the silence with music or chit chat, partially in what Cihro assumed to be a balm for his nerves as much as Cihro's, he took up space on the floor for some yoga. The hole where the needle pricked him itched and he felt stiff, like his mind was tricking him into thinking it had taken effect. Stretching and taking control of his breathing reminded him that the poison hadn’t taken hold, and he was okay. Relatively.

It made him sick to think that if she wanted him dead, he would be. 

He felt, in a roundabout way, like staying with Day was endangering him. Chances were someone skilled enough to slip by him, albeit drunk, knew he had a brother. But he felt safer here and it put Day at ease, too. They could protect each other. 

He traced the carvings in the hilt. He debated who he could tell. He was safer if he informed some of the party. The more eyes the better, even if the more eyes were directed at him the more likely a pair of them would wonder why someone wanted him dead. Cihro wasn’t the kind of guy to incense others or make enemies. 

His safety was worth the cost of a bit of suspicion, he thought. It was just a matter of who wouldn’t press him for specifics. Kishore, maybe. She had the greatest understanding of his and Day’s situation. He wanted to tell Aritian, if only because Aritian was somebody nobody wanted to cross, but he would definitely be suspicious. Theren was new enough to the group that he felt he wouldn’t care for why somebody was pissed at him, and he had an attentive air about him. 

He felt so protected by his teammates that it made him sick to his stomach. Or maybe that was the residue alcohol, and there was bile, now that he paid it any mind–Cihro hopped off the bed, tossed open the window, and emptied his stomach over the side. He wiped his mouth and glanced over his shoulder. Day stirred, but didn’t wake. 

He gulped fresh air, drank from a nearby waterskin, then closed the shutters and curled up on the end of Day’s bed. He pulled out a piece of parchment, a quill, and ink. He was too tired to really feel the weight of his own mortality beyond a preexisting pressure in his head, so best he did this now. If someone who was capable of killing him wanted to do so at any given time, then the others deserved a proper, final goodbye.

One draft he wrote in Sylvan, the next in undercommon. Following that, common. 

He wrote until he slept, fingers stained black.


	15. Sturzstrom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro doesn’t get why he’s having nightmares about his father’s death.

[56]

First the ghost, now whatever this was.

Cihro flopped over in his bed, a burning behind his eyes. The ghost he could understand, but he couldn't place his finger on why he was reliving the nightmare of his father's death again. Brian was a father with a son, sure, but that in itself wasn't a trigger. Cihro had been around plenty of fathers. Corsun had been one.

"This is stupid," he muttered to himself. He was the one to go to bed sober. He went to Terrah and made his peace. Why did some random external forces get to decide that the actions he took to mitigate his pain were temporary?

Maybe it was all the talk of druids and nature, he thought. Normally it excited him. It was like reconnecting with a younger version of himself and the father he'd lost and the comfort of knowing druids and their lifestyle continued after his death.

He cracked open his eyes to glare at the ceiling. The drum of rain against the roof reminded him of the sound of falling rocks.

How much more of an effort did he have to make before it stopped for good? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler: it was a hag's fault.


	16. Dead Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro has an intrusive thought about letting Aritian die.

[57]

Pressed close to the dirt of the incline, Cihro only saw the waving end of Aritian's flaming halberd and the feathered tips of his helmet. He heard the battle more than he saw it, and they'd been separate for most of it. From what little he saw and what he knew of Aritian, the fight was in their favour.

It wasn't the hag that got him, but the blow of the awakened tree. Cihro winced. He knew what that felt like and his arm throbbed in sympathy.

As Aritian's halberd fell out of sight and the glow of his wings receded, a sickening thought flit through his mind like a sparrow in flight. _If he's dead, he can't tell the Swords what he's learned._

_Dead men can't ask questions of you._

He considered holding his tongue. Day sprinting up the hill behind him had the means to heal Aritian, and Day would want to know. Was Kishore up there too? Would she get him back on his feet?

His eyes flicked to Caius nearby. He thought of him losing his brother a second time. He thought of himself in this hypothetical situation, with somebody available to heal Day but not doing so.

He shot down the sparrow of a thought like he would a target with his bow. Aritian deserved better than his selfishness.


	17. Flounder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro’s paranoia over M makes him bad at all the things he’s good at.

[59]

The closer they got to Westruun, the sicker Cihro felt.

He knew he wasn't _actually_ catching a cold. His throat didn't scratch and his sinuses were clear. But he carried around a persistent nausea and found himself waking with his teeth clenched. He woke up intermittently throughout the night, his mind racing and tiring itself out so that come morning he couldn't even hold two thoughts together with glue.

His lying was weak. He floundered. The more he failed, the more he continued to flounder. Telling Aritian had been a mistake. But if he hadn’t, what then?

He found himself glancing over his shoulder excessively. His usual cheek and charm were dulled by his paranoia and fatigue. He wasn't _him_.

He couldn't keep living like this.


	18. Liar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro lies to Aritian.

[62]

Aritian’s question was like the crack of a whip. It left the stinging realization that he could never forget, not even for a moment, that he was a criminal and not part of something greater. 

> "Are you affiliated with any criminal organization?"

Having had time to rest and recuperate and feeling safe in the borders of their new home and secure in the spells lining his room, lying came easier. He didn’t trip over his words and what poured out sounded earnest. He half believed it himself and wanted to make it the truth, but each lie pained him.

 _I'm no longer with the Clasp._ He was. _I haven't done any jobs in Westruun._ He had. It was the reason why M was siced on him in the first place. 

It was the reason why Corsun was dead.

He hoped that when Aritian learned the truth, he would remember that what Cihro said came from the heart. He’d been honest when he admitted liking him and wanting to leave the Clasp behind him, but it was wishful thinking. Their conversation went better than he expected, which gave him a bud of hope for their friendship, but he was scared to nurture that hope. 

Cihro managing a smile when they clasped arms was nothing short of a miracle. He saw only trust in his eyes and it troubled him to his core, made him feel wretched and unworthy of making any contact. He thought he’d burn at the touch from Aritian’s radiance. 

He missed the days where he could lie without guilt, but Day’s advice rippled in the back of his mind, that guilt was good. It meant he cared. He held on to that thought as they made to find his brother.


	19. Absence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro got used to waking up with Talsin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We had two weeks of downtime before shit hit the fan and Talsin had to leave for Important Wizard Things. This is also something that's happened with my sister and I.

[63/64]

Night before the Ravagers.

Cihro could smell the ash, the blood, the metal, the sweat. Hulking shadows loomed at every street corner. He heard the clash of war and the cry of a city in pain, one on the defense with its back against the wall. He'd heard it before and he had no desire to revisit it. 

In his unconscious mind he felt a warm, familiar presence lying beside him. He rolled and reached for him, searching for the peace of mind and rest he knew he'd find if he could anchor onto him.

He startled awake when he smacked Day across the face with his arm. His brother barked a yelp and his hands flew to his nose. Cihro sat up.

"Sorry, Diddy," he said low. The rest of the party, bar their watch guard, still slept. Day shot him a perplexed and mildly irritated look, rubbing his nose. "Thought you were - someone else."

Right. It wasn't the night before the Ravagers. They were on their way to the Crossroads, then to Emon. Right. They had a month and Talsin was somewhere else, gods knew where. Literally. Safe, at least. 

He flopped back over before his brother could comment and drew his bedroll over his head, scooting further away. His new armour creaked, the leather still stiff and not yet worn in. The ground was hard beneath him. There was nothing comfortable about this situation. 

Time and distance seemed to stretch on before him. He could do this. He had to. Talsin waited a hundred and fifty years for him, a few months was nothing. All he needed to do was survive. 

He slept, knowing he wasn't alone. They were all missing someone. 


	20. Ward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro eavesdrops on Elspeth.

[64]

If there was one thing Cihro could do, it was eavesdrop. 

He slot his hands into his pockets and hovered nonchalantly nearby, William's and Elspeth's conversation winding its way to his ears. He occasionally glanced over to get a read on their body language but kept his distance.

Elspeth made his job a little easier, her default volume carrying further than she probably meant it to. He felt uneasy for having to start so soon, but William had a one track mind and a habit of asking favours he hadn't earned. He'd done it before, requesting Cihro get in touch with "contacts" after he was absent for weeks and a half-assed attempt at sympathy for losing Thane. Cihro never did as he asked. 

He wanted to like William. He was still grateful that he helped out in the underdark, but every time he returned it was as if their worth boiled down to whatever they could provide for him. For Cihro, it was a legion of spies spread throughout the continent. For Elspeth, magic spells he didn't have. 

He understood his driving concern, but he didn't think it was a good excuse and it was always accompanied by troubling remarks about using people. It was manipulative. Cihro'd been manipulated into enough horrible work, he didn't need it from the people he traveled with. 

He knew all too well how charm could be turned on and off. It made him doubt William's intentions for helping rescue Talsin. Did he only help Cihro so he would return the favour? 

Cihro wasn't a good man by any stretch of the imagination, but even he drew the line somewhere. Using family was out of the question. How could he possibly entertain the idea of using someone else's sibling while on a grueling quest for his own? After what his sister had suffered? 

Was it entitlement from his nobility? Did William feel like people and the pieces that made them whole and their attachments were owed to him?

Kishore's faith in him made him want to do well in looking after Elspeth, but he also learned through Day that he liked having something to protect. Not a lot, because he'd become overwhelmed with worry and break his back under the weight of responsibility, but a handful of people he could trust not to hurt him. 

As the two parted, Cihro threw Elspeth a quick and easy smile and wandered off. 


	21. Taste

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro is bitten by a vampire.

[68]

Cihro clamped a hand over the bite wound in his neck. Alexei's face swam out of focus as he withdrew, fangs glinting red in the chandelier light. "A fine wine," he said, and Cihro realized that was _his_ blood. First blood.

That probably wasn't the weirdest compliment he'd gotten this year.

He'd been bitten before, but that was a ringed mouth within a mouth of incisors, one chomp and then he was out. This felt like having his life reversed in his body, drained upwards out of a single point and it left him feeling cold and brittle. He wasn't sure which was worse.

Adrenaline replaced his surge of panic from when the Baron rushed him, but he still couldn't shake the thought, _Will I turn into one of them?_

_If I was into biting before, I'm not sure if I am anymore._

He pried his shoulder from Alexei’s grasp and spun with a throw of his cloak, dancing out of range and weaving and ducking through the panicked nobles like he was water in a river, gliding easily around obstacles. His bow was already drawn and he removed the hand from his neck to pull an arrow, stained with blood. 

He took aim.


	22. Reveal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party learns that Cihro and Day are Clasp members.

[69]

The fog that once surrounded the Lord Baron's estate followed Cihro and settled on his mind as he was shackled and hauled off to prison. It was only when he was stripped to his tunic and pants that he felt a tingling between his shoulder blades, a reminder. His breath caught.

He hadn't resisted yet, but he yanked his wrist away from a guard and stepped back. They doubled down and tore his shirt off over his head. They removed Day's shirt at the same time and Cihro was jerked up by his arm while the guards inspected their backs, his skin pulled taut. 

"These two are Clasp," they observed with revulsion, like he was refuse on their shoe. "Take them to the back."

The fog lifted like a swift wind blew threw. His entire party was present and all but Aritian looked appropriately stunned, confused, concerned, or some mixture of all three. They were exposed. 

Gods, he'd somehow forgotten - stupid, thoughtless, stupid. He was too focused on the others. He could've easily hidden in a dark corner in the Baron's basement, and Day must've asked if he should teleport them out on account of their brands. His only thought was getting Elspeth out because she was fifteen and didn't need to be in a cell to be interrogated.

The guards redressed them all in coarse rags. He avoided everyone’s gazes as they dragged him and Day off to more fortified containment, his teeth gritted. Not out of shame, but disappointment in himself at being caught.

He'd been too confident in his ability to break out or the knowledge that he could call on the Clasp, but the Cloudtop district had only the highest security. He felt both special and condemned as they chained him to a wall and shut him behind an iron door. What would Sean think?

His party and their tentative trust in one another made the brand easy to forget. Now that trust was probably fractured unless Aritian vouched for them. Day might've been exposed even if Cihro had ducked into the shadows and followed at a distance, but he was right to want to ferry them both out. Cihro'd made his choice to stick together and now he was being flayed for it. He had to do better. He had to _be_ better. No more forgetting or being careless. 

He berated himself until he passed out, fingertips numb from being suspended and the bonds chafing his wrists. Day’s melody from the cell beside him helped coax him to sleep.


	23. Tool

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Most people only seem interested in using Cihro.

[71]

Spymaster Cihro Lanna. 

“Who can make sure that no one is going to disturb our peace,” the mage tempted him.

Silvenna thought she was painting a pretty, idealistic picture of Cihro’s future, but he frowned. The illusion of him didn’t look all that different from how he was now: same features, hair, similar armour and clothes. It was mostly his posture that was transformed, less relaxed and taking the world as it came to him and into someone with more backbone, something sturdier and in charge, leaning forward. His eyes were harder. They resembled Sean’s.

Being a Spymaster sounded nice, but there were other titles he wanted more. A brother. A son. An uncle. A tutor. A friend. A husband. 

He could probably be all of those things if he sided with her, but it didn’t feel like his choice. He was a tool being used in the making of a project and then shut away when all was built and done. It was an uncomfortable pattern in his life. Even last night when Caius spoke with him, he wanted to use him to get back at the Clasp. Leaving wasn’t good enough; he had to work against the organization that taught him almost everything he knew and put his life at risk. And for what? The Clasp would never totally go away.

It was never, ever about his well being. It was only ever about how good he could lie, how well he could steal, how efficiently and quietly he could take a life. People like Zola addressed him as “assassin” like it was the sum of his character. A part of him believed them. Hear it often enough and you’d start to believe it, kill enough and it became a reality. 

He was terrified of just leaving the Clasp, nevermind turning into a double agent. He already feared how Sean would react when he was forced to confess he and Day were exposed. He saw firsthand what they did to traitors, the memory of Sean flicking two daggers into the throats of dwarves fresh in his mind. They probably had worse in store for him as someone higher up in the chain than he liked to admit. 

He was also terrified of the Swords. It was like the opposing factions had a hand on each arm and was pulling him thin, popping his joints out of place, fighting for the use of him as a weapon with no care for his health. He didn’t want to serve either, he just wanted to have friends, but if he was most useful as a tool, he didn't see an alternative.

He couldn’t decide who he was more afraid of, and he knew he shouldn’t be making his choice out of fear. Sean had more to teach him. He was ashamed to admit that he wanted that, to get the most out of their tenuous mentor-apprenticeship. 

His mind was a whir, caught in the wheel of a cart. He focused on the stairs of the wizard's tower. Get through the present and he could address his future. 


	24. Ghost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro sees Corsun’s ghost in Silvenna’s tower.

[72]

Cihro believed in ghosts. He’d met one: William’s sister. She was the reason he spontaneously aged and sprouted a full beard and shoulder-length hair. He also met a banshee, whose wail periodically pierced his dreams. 

Whatever this was, it was worse. A ghost but not a ghost, hovering in his peripheral but vanishing whenever he twisted his head. Eventually he stopped trying to look, but his shoulders hiked up, his body preparing for a touch, a strike, anything. He half expected it to lean close and whisper in his ear, a breath that was like winter, but its throat was slit and there wouldn’t be words, only gurgled half-noises. Cihro hadn’t done that. He’d stabbed him in the liver.

He tried to ignore it. He was successful for the most part and focused on what Day saw, on what Silvenna was saying, on the solid, decorated armour on Aritian’s chest. He’d lived with the guilt up until now and shouldered it fine, but it was like a physical manifestation of that guilt. He scratched at his arm, felt the weight of the blade that he’d sunk into his body, the drip of black poison and blood over his fingers. He wasn’t in a library, but in the kitchen of a sleeping home just past midnight. 

When they left the library, the apparition disappeared. He avoided everyone’s gaze, Caius’ in particular. It worked out, nobody paid him any mind, and he was happy to melt into the shadows. Maybe he could disappear so well he ceased to exist in a space where the ghost could see him. 

It resurfaced later in the throne room. Cihro nocked an arrow and drew the magic string of his bow so his arms were one smooth line between him and Judge Moravax, an action as familiar as drawing breath. He saw the flicker of movement in the corner of his eye, a crimson neck and the dead, disapproving eyes cutting into his conscious. His arrow flew wide.

“This isn’t Umbrasyl,” he muttered to himself when the undead dragon launched itself into the air with a beat of its skeletal wings, another arrow soaring through nothing. “This isn’t Umbrasyl.”

He shook one fear but carried another. He was never afraid of his target, only the consequences, being discovered, and the wrath that would follow. All those fears were siphoned into a single image. He didn’t need those fears spelled out for him, looking at the dead man was enough to rustle them up like paper in the wind.

The fight continued like that. Anytime he took a deep breath to loose an arrow, he caught a glimpse of Corsun, existing to spite him beyond death, interfering with his psyche and his fine tuned instinct to kill. A part of him thought he deserved it, but as his friends rose and fell to the dracolich, he couldn’t help but want to do better for their sake. 


	25. Roots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro meets with Damen after the events in Emon.

[73]

Cihro spread his arms wide, sauntering. “Damen! You sonuvabitch, get over here.”

The dragonborn whirled in his seat, beaming two full rows of sharp teeth. He waved off everyone at his table, screeched out of his chair, and met Cihro in a hearty hug, sweeping his heels off the floor.

Age had treated them differently. Cihro hit thirty and hadn’t aged a day since. Five years his senior, Damen was the big five-oh. He was active and fit, but patches of his vibrant blue scales had lost some of their colour and his skin creased more than usual around the eyes and mouth. Dragonborn matured fast but only lived as long as humans.

Cihro had the odd sensation of knowing someone since he was an adolescent and watching them age while he remained untouched by time. It was something all elves, full blooded or half, would have to experience. But that wasn’t why he was here – his friend was alive and well.

Damen clapped him once on the back and Cihro jumped at the jolt of electricity. Harmless, but his hair stood up on end. Damen withdrew and held him at arm’s length, still grinning.

“Cihro! Glad to see you haven’t kicked the bucket. Come, sit. Why didn’t you visit me sooner?”

“Busy,” Cihro explained, drawing up a chair and ordering a whiskey with a flag of his finger. “I was on a bit of a time limit.”

“I’ve heard rumours,” Damen said, sitting close so their knees touched in a comfortable show of camaraderie. “What’s all this about two nobles murdered, and Judge Moravax, too? I thought we taught you to be more subtle than that.”

Cihro raised his hands. “Don’t look at me. My group isn’t exactly known for our stealth. Individually some of us are, but altogether we’re kind of a box of lit fireworks.”

“Is it true that he was a dragon?”

“Yeah,” Cihro said. The memory was fresh in his mind, disturbing his thoughts in ripples, and he shuddered. A waitress delivered his drink as if she knew he needed it at that moment and he knocked back a generous dose. “He was undead. He breathed lightning, like you do. Nearly got me. Probably would’ve killed me if he did, almost did kill a few of us.”

Sparks danced over the tip of Damen’s snout. “You don’t say.”

“And one of those nobles? The Lord Baron Alexei? Vampire.” Cihro tugged back his collar, tilting his jaw to bring the two circular puncture wounds on his neck into light. “See?”

Damen leaned forward, then back with a snort. “Goodness.”

Cihro filled him in on the rest: backflipping off an airship into a storm, the casino, the Archmage, the bounty hunter, fleeing the guard, Silvenna’s tower. In a hushed tone with a hand cupped over his mouth he explained getting arrested and breaking out. Cihro wove a tale of threatened lives, tension and suspense, and he realized as he spoke that he wasn’t embellishing at all. Their group really _did_ just fall into the arms of danger at every opportunity. If he was with anyone else or attempted to tackle those tasks alone, he would be dead ten times over.

How he graduated from babysitting Turst Fields for an autumn festival to infiltrating Emon and upsetting the peace was beyond him. Then again, there wasn’t really peace to start. Some things got worse before they got better and a few cultists embedded in high society had to die so a rapport could be built between cities. 

Damen listened, rapt, jaw rested against his knuckles.

“You sound pretty fond of these people,” Damen observed once Cihro finished. Cihro’s face heated and he sunk into his hood. That wasn’t the first response he expected.

“I—well, you try almost dying with some people and save their lives a couple times and see how _you_ feel about it. What’s wrong with that?”

Damen reclined in his seat, draping an elbow over the body of his chair. He gestured to the Clasp bar with a languid sweep of the arm, a den of thieves and criminals. If Cihro looked closely, he could see Spireling Zola in the distance.

“Nothing, I guess, but these are your people, Cihro. The reason you get to work with the Swords at all is because the Clasp put you there. Does this group trust you?”

“Some,” Cihro said. He felt Caius’ steel blue gaze cutting into him like broken shards of glass.

“Do you trust them?”

“Some,” Cihro repeated, vague. He felt the stony grip of Kishore’s hand. Gods, he missed her. “They know I’m Clasp.”

“That’s dangerous.”

“I know.”

“Do the Swords know you’re Clasp?”

“No.”

The two sat in silence, digesting and drinking as the weight of the story settled over them. Cihro swirled the dregs of his booze, unsure how to describe the feeling in his gut and not sure he even wanted to put it into words.

“I’m glad you visited,” Damen said at last, softer, smiling. “It’s good to see you thriving despite the danger and that you still have time for me even if you’re something of a hot shot now.” He reached over the table to rest a hand over his. “Just don’t forget your roots, okay? I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

Cihro sniffed. His roots were in Terrah, he thought. They lived with a man buried by the earth he sought to protect. But the Clasp filled his garden with weeds, overtaking the original seeds of his life. Damen was there from the beginning.

It was too late to dodge the hurt if any of his party cut Cihro off. It already did.

“Sure,” he said, laying another hand atop. “I won’t.”


	26. Picking Sides

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro gets wasted after an intense conversation with Sean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for heavy drinking, vomiting

[73]

Cihro stopped on the doorstep of the house where he met Sean, uncertain as to where he actually wanted to go. _“Get out of my sight.”_ Sean was perceptive. Where could Cihro go that he wouldn’t be seen?

Did it matter?

He willed his legs to move and half jogged to the nearest tavern he knew, the Puddlemuck. He swore he wouldn’t get drunk while M was still a threat and he managed fine in Emon, but everything was rushing in over a broken dam. He needed _something_ and alcohol could fill that void until he determined what.

 _“We’re not friends,”_ Caius said in Emon.

 _“You’ve become too attached,”_ Sean sneered at him. _“Did you figure out which side you were on while you were away?”_

_“It’s your mess, I won’t clean it up.”_

He ordered the most expensive thing he could find, to Kerrek’s surprise, then knocked it back with abandon, desperate to deafen Sean’s words on loop. Sean’s choice of words felt like actual, physical blows, and when his nerves tingled from the alcohol and the pain stopped, they swam in his vision instead. He barreled on. He hoped to make the word tilt enough that he couldn’t read them. He couldn’t think with them there. He didn’t want to think at all.

_“If you’re compromised, they won’t find you before I do.”_

It started to work. He ditched the tavern and started towards the estate, but popped into another pub on the way. Two turned to three. He lost count after that, was amazed he could even find his way around at all. It would’ve been a gift for M to run into him now. Did he circle back?

By the time he arrived at the front door of the mansion he staggered with every step and he almost faceplanted into the main foyer, but caught himself on the door frame, nauseous. He had no clue what time it was. He didn’t open the door, someone on the other side did. 

Everyone was there, patiently waiting for him. Or maybe unpatiently - impatiently - he didn’t know, why did they need him? He straightened, swayed summore, and stumbled to stand beside his brother.

* * *

He awoke in the night to throw up the worst of his binge drinking in the chamber pot. He took a few careful sips of water and laid on his side on the floor, its surface cool against his burning face. Sweat dripped past his brow. Cihro fell asleep in his clothes, but it looked like Day managed to remove his cloak, at least. 

His thoughts were a little more coherent. Painful because of a throbbing headache, but coherent.

Sean’s words were less of a punch to the gut and more of a revelation at that hour. Day’s pep talk, no matter how inebriated Cihro had been, was ice on the bruises. His words held more meaning and truth and Day spoke to him from a place of concern.

Cihro flopped onto his back. The ceiling was painted in a mixture of dark blue and greys, his darkvision mingling with what little natural light the night gave. He laid an arm across his forehead and focused on the floor beneath his back, imagined it as the earth bracing his weight, freeing him from responsibility. He deepened his breaths, meditative.

So, he’d made a mistake. Wouldn’t be the first. He didn’t have to tackle it alone or let it define his future.

He thought of new words to replace the ones Sean lambasted him with. _“I’ll support you. Whenever you’re ready, I’ll be here.”_

He didn’t need to pick which side. He could pick a who, right?

Cihro crawled to his feet and pulled himself into the armchair by the empty fireplace. He curled up and fell into a deep sleep.


	27. Air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro’s situation with the Clasp grows more dire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, looking at Cihro & gesturing at my DM: look at what you've done. you've fucked up a perfectly good half-elf is what you did. look at him, he's got anxiety.

[74]

Cihro knew the conversation would be difficult before they started. Aritian made it doubly so with a zone of truth spell. It washed over him in a wave of white light, and his tongue didn't feel like his own.

He tried to mask the shake in his hands when he wrote into Kishore's palm with his finger once the discussion concluded. _'I killed Corsun.'_ "That's the complication," he mumbled, barely above a whisper.

He forced himself to look up. She stared at her hand, then met his eye with a shaky breath and offered him a single nod of solidarity. She slid back her arm not to pull away, but to grasp his hand and squeeze.

He almost cried, but this throat was a parched well from nerves. He was so pent up, like a balloon too full of air and ready to burst, but didn't. He lowered his head and squeezed back as hard as he could. He knew even his tightest grip couldn't hurt her. He found comfort in that and he slowly released the air in his chest instead of letting it escape all at once.

He was still scared. He didn't know when that would change, if ever, but he wasn't alone with the secret anymore.


	28. Straw that Broke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro finally breaks down in the Shadebarrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “When the Cup is brim full before, the last (though least) superadded drop is charged alone to be the cause of all the running over.”

[76]

In a true 'fuckpack' or whatever Io called them fashion, the group of them entered the Shadebarrow. Every source on the place - every book, every word passed from mouth to mouth - said nobody came out alive. Talsin reiterated as much before they entered, pleading him to be careful over his sending stone. They scoffed and did it anyway. He wasn't sure if it was confidence, cockiness, or stupidity. Maybe a dash of all three. 

It wasn’t that they thought those sources were wrong, maybe they just thought themselves invincible after Emon.

Cihro's legs shook as he lowered himself to sit on the stone ruins. He wasn't injured, not physically. There were a few nicks in his clothes from desperately racing through brush with clawed ends for branches, but nothing reached his skin. He drew one shaky breath and curled his legs to his chest, lowering his face into his knees. When he exhaled, it hitched into a silent sob. Tears bloomed in his eyes and spilled over his cheeks, hot and stinging. 

It was an amalgamation of the last few days. He knew he would eventually break, but he had no idea when. His tears were always a surprise, creeping up on him just as he did to everything he stabbed in the back.

Day running full tilt at the pit fiend. Its maul smashing into Kishore's prone body. Its first appearance flying out of the gloom directly beside him, radiating pure malice and doom that terrified him down to the soles of his feet. Sean looming, threatening, his words and voice a knife's edge drawn across his skin. Corsun. 

He wept heavier with every flashing image of the last forty eight hours. He was quiet, he hadn’t completely lost control, but the tears soaked into his legs and his shoulders shuddered in a way that couldn’t be mistaken for anything else.

He felt the strength of an arm wrap around his back. He recognized Kishore's ever-sturdy grip and leaned into it. Day never let go of his hand, either, and he clutched it. Day’s hand had become especially familiar over the last few days, so much so that he felt weird with its absence. It was a constant reassurance, a reminder and promise that they were in this together. He didn’t want to leave the forest without it, or Kishore’s. 

He let himself cry. He had no choice. 


	29. Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro is disturbed by more intrusive thoughts when given the choice to heal or kill Caius.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Context: Caius knows that Cihro knows who killed Corsun but he hasn't said who.

[77]

The words were on the tip of Cihro's tongue: "It was me, I did it. I killed Corsun."

Caius clutched his head in agony and plummeted from the sky before Cihro got the chance to free them. His body shimmered back into its half-elf form, then hit the ground with a sickening crunch of bone against rock and sharpened brush. The curse on Cihro lifted. 

Cihro sprinted in his direction, away from the ruins. Every step felt like splinters shot up through the bones in his legs and every breath felt like his lungs were stoking a fire, still expelling the toxins from the poisonous cloud. Gods, he really was in the habit of getting caught in those and yet he was no more used to the pain now than he was the first time it happened.

He passed Day with a brush of the shoulder and already had a hand on the medical kit in his bag. He skidded to stand over Caius' prone body, battered and bruised, fresh blood dribbling out of his ears from Day's spell. Cihro's first arrow still sprouted from his shoulder. 

He'd never shot anyone in the party before.

As he knelt and tore open the kit, he heard a voice in his head - not his own, but not anyone he recognized. Was it the Shadebarrow itself, creeping into his conscience, or another sign of madness?

 _'The body of your quarry sits in front of you,'_ it whispered in his ear, a devil on his shoulder. Is this how Caius felt with his familiar, or his patron? Devils were everywhere here. _'You could slit his throat. Get rid of him.'_

_'What would Sean do?'_

He hesitated, his fist closed over bandages, tools of healing. A dagger sat beside his pouch, one of his tools of murder. So many of his problems were wreathed in a single person, it'd be so easy, he was already dying—

No, he couldn't. He burned with shame. Caius didn't consider him a friend, but he'd be damned if Cihro didn't care about his well being. They hadn't struggled at one-hundred percent all the way here just for Cihro to hurl it all down the trash. Aritian wouldn't stand for it even if Cihro could successfully pass it off as a necessity. Aritian would never forgive him, and he would never forgive himself. 

Killing Caius was the easy way out - for him, and for Caius.

He began smearing Caius’ wounds in herbs and salves and hurriedly wrapped them, cursing under his breath. He had a feeling that wouldn't be the last of his hesitation. So long as he didn't act on it, he was himself, but until he stopped entirely, he would never be a good person. 


	30. Rot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro visits Corsun's grave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For promptober 2020.

[79]

Cihro had no reason to visit Westruun’s cemetery. His father was buried outside Terrah and anyone else close to him had no grave, either because they were a body among the masses or they were alive. His mother went missing during Thordak’s attack and her name was engraved on a plaque in Emon. His favourite people kicked ass next to him on the regular.

He stood over Corsun’s grave. Fresh flowers laid at the foot of the tombstone, delicate white irises and gladioli beaded with water. The rain had since stopped, but the sky remained grey and overcast. He had a knee-jerk thought: _I should’ve brought my dad flowers._

He couldn’t justify his visit no matter how hard he tried. At the end of the day it was a morbid curiosity, firing blindly into his emotions and seeing what he struck. Would the emotions he always felt around Corsun become more intense or would he unveil new ones?

The answer wasn’t straightforward. He felt numb, at first, just a man staring at another man’s grave like a stranger. He knew on the surface Corsun didn’t deserve having his murderer stand at his resting place. Then he tapped in deeper, slowly. The usual emotions welled up like pricks of blood on his finger: penitence for those left behind, a sinking dread that the situation wasn’t resolved, and fear for the future. 

He almost felt guilty that he didn’t feel bad for killing Corsun directly; his remorse was for the people still alive that he couldn’t avoid. He understood why he got the contract, and he would have taken it again to keep Day safe. Even if he hadn’t been the one to do the deed, Corsun still would have perished. He just never could’ve predicted that it’d become such a point of contention for his group. 

Corsun, by the book, was a far better man than Cihro would ever be, and he was rotting beneath several feet of dirt while Cihro lived on. It was an unfortunate truth of the greater world if the Cult of Tiamat and the Clasp were anything to go by, and if Cihro spent too much time chewing on it he’d lose years of his life pointlessly wearing down his teeth. 

“Hello,” he heard, and turned his head. Corsun’s widow approached cradling a bouquet of red roses. His heart gave a startled jerk against his chest, but he fixed his expression.

“Sorry,” he said, almost unexpectedly, taking a step back. 

“No, don’t be,” she said, coming up to stand beside him. “I’m glad he has visitors when I’m not here. It looks like Harthal also came by.” She gestured to the flowers already gathered, then bent to lower hers beside them. 

“I can give you a moment alone,” Cihro said, stabbing a thumb over his shoulder, but it was an excuse – the compulsion to run had him in its fist. He didn’t even remember her name and he was too embarrassed to ask.

“Wait,” she said as she straightened, reaching out to touch his arm but fingers stopping just shy of his sleeve. “You’re one of Caius’ friends, aren’t you? You were there when—” She cut off, face darkening.

“We work together,” Cihro corrected her. _Worked_ , he thought, past tense. “I dunno if I’d call us friends, but yeah, I was there when – yeah.” 

She nodded. “I never really got to thank you all properly for looking into it. It’s appreciated.”

Cihro settled for a nod, but the muscles of his neck creaked like they needed oiling, a mechanical response. He could still hear her shriek when she discovered her husband’s dead body and it occurred to him that he was a source of trauma for her. Even at his most uncomfortable about the situation, he would still only feel a fraction of her pain.

Avoiding watching the fallout worked for him in the past and he’d continue to do so wherever possible. Being forced to interact with the victims’ family and those who were most affected made his guilt protracted and this time it was his own fault for seeking it out like some sort of twisted method of punishment. Cihro knew it was a bad idea to come, but he did it anyway. 

“I know Caius was still looking into it,” she continued. “I can’t help but feel like it’s related to why he’s suddenly in prison. I didn’t ask him to – he just did. I don’t know how good a vengeance quest is for him, it feels self-destructive, but I don’t have the heart to stop him.”

“I don’t think you could even if you did,” Cihro said, almost sympathetically. 

She puffed a small, knowing laugh. “You’re right.”

They stood in silence, a wet wind whistling through the graveyard. Cihro scratched at his neck – no ghosts here, he reminded himself. Probably.

“I’m gunna head back,” he said. “It was nice seeing you, uh…”

“Aleina.”

“Right.” He dipped his head in a polite nod. “Take care.”

He shoved his hands into his pockets and strode for the gates. Aleina’s opinion of him would sour if she visited Caius and he told her what he learned – and then what? Why did her opinion matter to him?

 _Dead men can’t investigate your murders_ , his mind taunted him, an echo of when he saw Aritian bleeding out on the ground. He’d been back for a day and a half and he already regretted using medicine over a swift knife to the chest for Caius. 

Sean was right; he’d grown too attached to someone who didn’t care half as much for him. Caius’ feelings hinged on the law and which side of it Cihro fell on. Caius was more than happy to sever their bonds over it – maybe Cihro should have let them go instead of trying to grasp for their tattered ends.


	31. Growth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro visits the Mother’s Grove for lute practise.

[79]

Cihro found himself at the Mother’s Grove at the week’s end after his morning run and breakfast, a few days after meeting Tyr with Kishore. His brother’s lute was strung over his back, a companion for his bow.

He could count on one hand how many times he’d visited the Mother’s Grove. When he lived alone in Westruun before he met Dayereth, he avoided it like the plague. Following his trip to Terrah, he never visited due to lack of time. The Swords and adventuring kept his group busier than busy.

His feet slowed to a stop by the entrance, a woven archway of wood, uncertainty welling within him. Last time he was here hadn’t been a happy occasion and he hadn’t wanted to be there. De-aging was a weird and low-key embarrassing process.

Did he even deserve to be there of his own free will? He wasn’t a worshiper of Melora and he wasn’t about to start anytime soon. Not too long ago he was indifferent to the gods and their paper thin presence on the material plane. He used to despise how paladins cared more for their laws and gods than the people they lived beside, he’d been burned by it.

He knew that whatever he kept at a distance couldn’t hurt him, either. He couldn’t be disappointed by a god if he didn’t devote his life to them. Devotion through worship was just another type of leash for him and he already had enough of those affixed to his collar.

He’d warmed up to them in the recent months, though, mostly through Day and Aritian. He never explicitly expressed how he felt about Day’s vision from Kraghammer. Day was so bright and full of hope, Cihro couldn’t bring himself to explain why he didn’t want to put faith in a vision. He was sure his scepticism showed through his actions, but he was also sure his actions showed that he was willing to follow him for as long as Day thought their mother was alive.

Hope was a fickle thing. He was glad Day’s vision proved to be true, to some degree. Hope that lead somewhere lent itself to more hope.

He wanted to be outside, away from the estate. He was tired of his room and didn’t feel up to subjecting his friends and servants to his clumsy playing. Strangers, though? Sure. His need to be outside was helped by the dagger marks Sean left in his wall. He needed a dart board or a painting to cover them up.

He steeled himself and entered. In mid-autumn, half of the golden, orange, and rose red leaves still clung to the trees while others fell freely to join the ones on the ground. Some drifted by his vision and the druids let them stay where they landed, giving the ground a vibrant, mismatched blanket.

He should come back in winter, he thought, when there was a layer of snow. He should come back every season.

He gave a sheepish bow of his head when the Archdruid who cured him caught his eye. She nodded once in return and he slunk away over to the edge of the grove, swinging the lute from his back. He sat cross-legged in a small patch of flowers behind a tree, out of sight. He pulled out some music sheets, set a rock on them to keep them from escaping, and plucked the strings to make sure the lute was tuned.

He warmed up his fingers with tones, then practised chords and exercises Day wrote up for him. He wondered if playing would be easier if his fingers were longer and he’d started younger, but he savoured the challenge of learning something new and different.

He’d learned through Day that music could harm if done correctly, but he wasn’t learning to hurt anyone. Most of his menagerie of skills he’d acquired contributed to assassination. Picking locks meant he could break into houses and wait for his target. Disguising himself meant he could get in close and escape without fear of being able to walk the city as himself.

Playing lute was his own choice, and it was his choice to do it for pleasure. Whittling was similar. He was creating something good to put out into the world, not snuffing out a life.

He switched to a lullaby when he noticed the low thrum of agitation. It was the most familiar piece of music he could play from memory and it always soothed him enough to continue practise. There was one Day hadn’t taught him that he conjured up that he was trying to write down. If he could get it in writing, Day could make it sing more than he ever could.

“Doing alright?”

Cihro glanced up. The Archdruid stood over him, her hands folded behind her back. She was a half-elf like him, but he assumed far older. Antlers adorned a wreath on her head. A mantle of leaves, shimmering with colour, spilled over her shoulders and nearly touched the bed of flowers. Her eyes were a dark brown and a small smile quirked her lips. Sylnus, he remembered.

“Uh, yeah,” he tried for. He remembered the druids’ reservations when Kishore asked about the purple worm but he drop-kicked that thought before it could bleed through his face or voice. Its poison still sat in one of his deepest pockets. “Sorry, I should’ve asked, but I didn’t wanna bother anyone. Is it alright if I play here?”

“It’s alright, yes. We would have kicked you out if it wasn’t.”

“You’re not here because somebody’s complaining about my playing, right? I’m still learning.”

Sylnus shook her head. “Nobody minds. The plants can see that you’re growing.” A hand extended from under her mantle, gesturing to the plants circling Cihro. “It would be unfair of them to complain, they’re growing just the same. The Mother’s Grove isn’t just a place for worship, it’s a garden to be in and tend to.”

Cihro swallowed and nodded. He felt exposed, suddenly, to himself and to her. He knew deep down why he avoided the grove for so many years, and he knew now why he came today. Sylnus exuded a presence not unlike the Ashari, one of patience and wisdom and strength. Whether she meant to or not, she reminded Cihro of home.

He’d come a long way from his grief over his father. He could enjoy the things and spaces that would have brought him pain a year ago. He didn’t have to shelter that part of himself anymore, could open the floodgates to an unfamiliar kind of peace and joy.

Cihro brought his mother and father together in one place. His mother in the music, his father in the thriving flora on all sides. His brother’s teachings guided his hand and his eyes. It was as close to being surrounded by family as he could get without actual people by his side. It felt like his dad was listening and encouraging him with every breeze that carried the scent of flowers.

“Is that the only reason why you’ve come?” Sylnus asked, gesturing to the lute.

“Yeah,” Cihro admitted. “Did you— ” He stopped himself. It was stupid to assume different druid circles knew each other. He wanted to talk about his dad and ask questions about Melora’s practises, but he didn’t even talk about him with his closest friends. They deserved to know more about Zephir than a suspicious Archdruid.

Sylnus stared at him expectantly, an eyebrow raised.

“Nevermind,” Cihro said. “Thanks for letting me play here.”

“Of course. Good luck. I didn’t mean to disturb you, I just wanted you to know that you’re welcome to speak to us. Carry on, and stay here for as long as you like.” She drifted off.

Cihro took a deep, meditative breath, and resumed practise. 


	32. Blade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sean won’t tell Cihro why his new target needed to die.

[81]

> “Is there any particular reason you wanted him dead?” Cihro asked.
> 
> “You are the blade,” Sean said, quirking an eyebrow. “You need not know why he was killed.” 

Cihro returned to the Brambleview estate late afternoon, slipping past anyone who might’ve mistaken his disguise for a stranger. He climbed to the third floor and shed his outfit, makeup, and wig, then locked up in his room.

He drew his dagger from its sheath and sat it in his palm, its silver metal practically glowing against the black of his glove. Half-dried blood smeared its crescent face. He frowned.

Something ate at him the moment he crept into Jason’s home. Every step of the process only fed into it. He’d ignored it at the time, shut off that nagging voice to focus on the task at hand. Farmer or no farmer, he couldn’t be clumsy with his kills. 

In the privacy of his room with his thoughts for company and the job behind him, it occurred to him. The utter shock on Jason’s face as he bled out on the floor, the unlocked front door, Sean’s dismissal at his question about why. Sean was upfront when he told him Corsun needed to die for knowing too much. A farmer with a family was worth knowing, too, even if it was a minor offense.

Unbidden concerns gusted into his head with the force of a gale. Did he just make another family like Corsun’s? Now there was another mother without her husband and a son deprived of a father and nothing of value left for them to pay for a funeral because he stole everything that could be exchanged in gold. 

Was he doomed to continue breaking families apart? Even though he hadn’t killed Caius or Aritian, killing Corsun triggered a lust for vengeance within Caius that sent them racing into the Shadebarrow. He told Aritian private information that planted mistrust in Caius’ heart. Were those two brothers doomed to drift apart even without Cihro’s interference, or did he speed up the process? His chest tightened. 

He clenched the hilt and drowned those thoughts before they could fully manifest. Kishore’s family was as close-knit as the day he met them, and they’d welcomed him into their fold. Thoughts like those lead down a dark and dangerous path to self loathing, but what was he if not already on another dark path, winding alongside it? What if he walked one that was worse? Did they intersect, could he crawl his way back out of the hole?

He didn’t think he was cold-blooded or a monster, but the children and partners of the people he’d killed would disagree. 

He cleaned the blade. He couldn’t help but feel like he traded an innocent life to prove his loyalty. He wondered if it was a test going in, and he still wasn’t certain what the truth was even now. He trusted the Clasp always killed with reason and he hoped that was still the case even with his misgivings.

Maybe that was his mistake, and maybe the reason this time was to see if Cihro was a well-trained dog.


	33. Key

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro forgets he has a key to Kishore’s house.

[85]

Cihro walked the path to the Palebloom Hall after dinner. It was familiar enough now that he could find his way there blindfolded.

He knocked and instantly felt the weight of the key in one of his many sewn-in pockets. Kishore only gifted it to him a few nights ago; he hadn’t touched it since he got it. He fished it out and stared. He owned a set of keys to the main estate and its copious amount of doors and those felt like his keys, but this one didn’t. Not yet.

The keys to the room he used at the Wayward Pony never felt like his, either, and they weren’t no matter how long he stayed. Every Clasp member knew that any place could be temporary, that they could be uprooted and forced to move the same night they arrived. It was the closest thing he had to a home before the Bramblebiew estate, but it was always conditional. He had to work for those who slept in its seedy underbelly.

If he wanted into someone’s house, he either picked the lock or knocked. The choice depended on whether he was welcome or not, and he usually wasn’t. An assassin wasn’t someone you invited inside.

He fit the key into the lock and opened the door. It worked. His eyebrows shot up. He shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was. He didn’t expect deception from Kishore, but a part of him expected life itself to grind him with its heel. He returned the key to its nook in his clothes and entered, ducking his head, but Kishore’s family only greeted him with kindness and familiarity as he passed. By the time he reached the kitchen where Kishore was, he wore a smile and held his chin high.

Warmth blossomed inside his chest, an age old kind associated with coming home and being greeted by family that was his own. For now, he didn’t question it. 


	34. Correspondence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A series of letters between Cihro and his half-sister, Theotae.

“Theotae,

It’s Cihro writing, but this is from Dayereth as well. You know, your brothers! 

We recently learned that Day’s dad is still alive and looking for our mother in the Feywild. We contacted him through a sending spell and we contacted mother as well. She’s alive.

Dunno if this is of interest to you or if you’d rather ignore it, but you’re the best lead we have on getting into the Feywild. We wanted to know if you already knew anything about this or if you knew any ways to get in. I hope you can set aside your personal issues with our mom and help us out if you can. It’d mean a lot to Day even if he doesn’t say it, and I think it’d give us all some answers if we found them. I know you still care about where she is despite what you say. There’s no point in trying to hide that and bury it. I get it. 

If you want to reply, you can reach out to me. Day probably won’t respond. If not, it’s whatever. We wanted to try all possible avenues. With or without your help, we’re going to try and find her, but it’d be easier with your help. We’re more likely to succeed that way. 

Cheers,

Cihro”

* * *

“Cihro, 

It's a pleasure to hear from you, do tell young Dayereth I say hello. So Chandrelle still lives, very interesting. I have ways of getting into the Feywild but it is very dangerous and you should not go unprepared, it would be just as easy for you to die in there than find her. I have many questions for her too and I’ll be damned if some fey creature is going to kill her before I get my answers. I will need time to go through the proper channels to obtain access for outsiders such as yourselves, I assume you will be bringing others as well? I will need their full names and affiliations to run proper checks on them. I hope this letter finds you well, once I have the information I will notify you when I am ready for transport then we can get our answers once and for all. Try to stay alive until then. 

Your loving half sister,

Theotae Raethran the first of her name Lady of the Redwood, Highbearer of the Codex Genesia, Matriarch of House Raethran and Warden of Syngorn”

* * *

“Theotae,

Here’s what I know about everyone after asking around:

Corporal Aritian Senor - aasimar, paladin of Pelor, employed by the Swords and the Margrave 

Cihro Lanna - half-elf, mercenary, employed by the Margrave

Dayereth Firahel Whiteheart - half-elf, bard, worshiper of Sarenrae, employed by the Margrave

Gwen of the Circle of the Black Valley - halfling, druid, traveling with us

Hope Maallinen - tiefling, employed by the gun corps of the Swords

Kishore Maallinen - goliath, monk, employed by the Margrave

Krusk Ragnarsson of Clan Blackblade - half-orc, mercenary, employed by us

Theren Ariessus - drow, monk and cleric of the Moonweaver, freelancer

Hope that’s enough. Some information is easier to exchange in person. Just as a warning, we’re gunna be out of the city for a while. Not sure for how long, but if you send word again and don’t get a reply in a timely manner, that’s why. I’ll let you know when we’re back.

Sincerely,

Cihro Lanna, Hero of Westruun, Honorary Maallinen-Briar, He Who Drinks Bad Whiskey, Poison Connoisseur, Third Place Archery Contest Winner, Lolth’s Bane, and Not the Shortest Member of the Family”

* * *

Undisclosed first draft, as transcribed by Cihro: 

"Dear FuckFace, 

This is your disgraced excuse of a half-brother that you decided to publicly shame and throw out of Syngorn. Definitely not still bitter. It’s come to our attention and that we recently learned that my dad is still alive and is looking for our mother. Do you happen to know anything or know of any ways to get into the Feywild? Could be useful. 

If you want to reply, send it to Cihro, as I will burn it. Thank you, I’m going to go back to pretending you don’t exist. 

Your half-brother, which you cursed out in elven and threw out of the city,  
Dayereth  
P.S. You’re a bitch" 


	35. Chaos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party struggles to get their horses across a river.

[87]

There were a lot of firsts with the Fuckpack.

Day transforming into a giant ape was not. His brother rose from the mare behind him and did an inelegant hop off, but before he hit the water his form expanded and erupted with fur and muscle. He landed in the river with a deep _harrumph_ , spraying them in waves, and their horse and the one next to him immediately threw a fit, tossing their heads under the reigns in his hands.

“Woah, woah, easy, easy,” he said, bringing the lead into one hand and gently stroking up and down her neck. He calmed them down once before from the bulettes, surely—

No. She tore the reigns from his hands and bucked. He managed to keep hold once, clenching his thighs and her hair, but she did it again with more kick and flung him from the saddle. He issued a short yelp before he gasped a breath and broke the water.

Fuck, it was cold. He surfaced and shook his hood and hair out of his face. Day-rilla, with complete and utter ease, scooped up a flailing horse in each hand and waded through the river to the opposite side to meet with Krusk. Krusk still had one beefy green arm wrapped around the ribs of his horse, almost like a side-hug. Day set each mount onto their hooves and they hit the ground running, bolting towards freedom from the chaos they were saddled with. Theren chased after them.

Kishore sprinted across the water past Cihro’s head, barely leaving any ripples in her wake. “Show-off,” he called after her, treading water.

Day returned before Cihro swum far, cupping him out of the water with both hands like he was about to drink. Cihro shivered as air rushed over him, but Day set him on his shoulder and carried him to shore. Cihro huddled closer to his head, grasping at neck fur with one hand and the edge of his cloak with the other. Over the next few minutes he adjusted to the height, Day’s bizarre gait, and tried to warm up with the help of Day’s new, natural coat.

Theren collected their horses and the group returned to traveling speed, Day shambling on four legs after everyone else. Cihro found himself enjoying riding on Day’s shoulder more than horseback and grinned.

It was chaos, sure, but it wasn’t the sort of chaos that made him think they wouldn’t be alive in a minute. This adventuring thing – something he thought he wasn’t cut out for all his life – maybe there was something to it after all.

Cihro kept a rough track of the time and after what he thought was about fifty minutes he slid down Day’s arm, the tree trunk that it was. Day stopped his trot and made an approximation of a confused noise, but within the next few minutes he blinked back into someone Cihro’s race and size.

“You really just let me be an ape for a whole hour?” Day asked once he was in his half-elf body, adjusting his hat. “Without saying anything?”

“Yeah?” Cihro said, shrugging. “You were keeping pace with the horses? You were having fun? Seemed fine to me.”

“Now I know what it’s like to be you for extended periods of time,” Day groused.

Cihro smacked him in the arm with the back of his hand, but his grin never faltered.

He didn’t know how long their peace would last, if he could even call it that, but he cherished every in-between when they weren’t fighting for their lives. 


	36. Shatter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro breaks Day out of a block of ice.

[89]

Cihro had experience fighting dragons, even if he’d only fought the one. It was more than most could say. He was still afraid, but more confident in his ability and the skill of his party. In hindsight, he supposed his confidence was misplaced given how slow everyone was to react.

He staggered towards the edge of the brush he’d spent the entire fight blending into. The white dragon was too far away for him to hit again, beating bloodied wings, and this Ubba threat was cutting down his frozen allies. Day was too close to him for comfort and the mutated orc looked too healthy for Cihro to take down in a single shot.

His eyes rapidly scanned the ice Day was encased in for a crack, any sign of weakness. He’d been around enough stone and winter to know one when he saw it. Raw, cut, dry fingers drew the string to his bow. His arms trembled, unable to shake the cold the dragon belched at him and buried its way into his bones. His bow, however, weathered the frozen wasteland bravely, and his arrow soared and hit true.

The crack webbed out violently and the block of ice shattered. Day gasped and landed on his back in the snow, then rolled onto his side with a cuss. Cihro heard him grumble, then watched him stand and scan the battlefield, a hand hovering near the arrow shaft in his side.

“Everybody needs to get up!” Day shouted, and a wave of healing energy torrented outwards, saving a fallen Aritian and Krusk. Cihro breathed a sigh of relief even as the magic missed him, unseen.

He remained hidden, fear and cold closing his throat, still feeling panic race alongside his relief in equal measure. He would run when he could and now Day could as well. Wherever he went, his brother was his priority.


	37. Loss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro comforts Kishore after Shale’s death.

[95]

Cihro experienced a flash of memory when the dragon buffeted Shale off the cliff. Rocks cascading, crushing and ceaseless, the hand of his father protruding from a coffin of stone. They were deadly falling, but also if you were to fall upon them. And they had no feelings on the matter – they just _were._

Cihro hopped off Day’s eagle form and circled to Kishore’s far side. What was left of Shale was a grisly sight, one enough to make his stomach churn. It was always easier to look upon corpses of people he didn’t know. They hadn’t known Shale for long, but she was kind to them and a piece of something greater for Kishore. 

He comforted her as best as he could. It didn’t feel like enough.

There was so much more he wanted to say – he’d been grieving for more of his life than not. Throughout one’s time, they may be given tools they needed to help cope with loss, but that never stopped someone from just needing to _feel_ it. It was so different for so many, and if Cihro tried to use every metaphor he could think of to describe it, they would be crouched there for years.

Even with closure, there was always the risk of it rushing back. Small hurts added up over time still took their toll.

Maybe a conversation for later. His most important sentiment was that whatever Kishore felt, he would be there to help her endure. For now, he dabbed at her face with the wrist of his glove as Day’s wing shielded them from the rain.


	38. Destroy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro reflects on killing Talsin's mother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For promptober 2020. I don't really know where to put this chapter since it's so ambiguous, but it is related to [this chapter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22795222/chapters/54506428)!

Cihro took some pride in killing, but to him it was mostly work, a job that required practise. Destroying Talsin's mother was the single most satisfying kill he'd ever had. It felt good – it felt _right,_ and he wasn’t going to pretend it didn’t for the sake of morality.

"You don't deserve him," he’d snarled, and it sounded slowed by the effects of his potion of speed. His hand trembled around the grip of his bow while she hocked a laugh from her palanquin.

"And you do?" she retorted, her words acrid. 

"Maybe not, but at least he chose me."

Knowing he could murder someone so powerful on his last leg bolstered him in moments of weakness. So long as he hadn't lost consciousness, he could fight and make a difference. 

Those were a few of the thoughts that whisked through his mind when he examined his bow, Venenum. It was born of her death in a pool of her blood – he would protect the flesh she sought to use and sacrifice by using her remains.


	39. Adrift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Traumatic day? You and your brother die? Have a sleepover!

[102]

Cihro came to and from consciousness. Going to sleep terrified him down to every thread that made up the fibre of his being. Last time he closed his eyes, even involuntarily, he hadn’t woken up.

All that he saw – he saw it with his eyes closed; like a dream, only his soul was adrift from his body. Remembering fragments that slipped away the more he tried to envision them. Existing felt strange to him. Would he become unmoored again, his rope for a lifeline frayed? Did the Astral plane stake a claim on him?

He was half-tucked between the sofa and sprawled on top of Talsin in the Palebloom’s drawing room. Day fell asleep curled up against the couch with his head on the cushion, a hand clasped around Cihro’s. Kishore was camped out on the floor behind him, facing them but eyes shut and black tendrils of hair dripping over her face. An uneasy tension oscillated in the house, tender and frail, susceptible to breaking again at any moment.

Talsin was awake – Cihro felt his hands drift every so often, flattening against the back wall of his ribs like he was checking his breathing. His knuckles occasionally brushed the skin on his cheekbone or temple.

Cihro lifted his chin, cracking open a sliver of his eyes to make out the vague shape of him.

“Thank you for coming,” he murmured.

Talsin inhaled deeply, Cihro’s head rising with it. “Cihro,” he said fondly on the exhale, just as soft. “Of course. I’d bring you the moons if I could. Of course I’d come.”

Cihro closed his eyes with a nod, ear settling against Talsin’s sternum, over his heart. He clutched Day’s hand tighter.


	40. Reap What You Sow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro reflects on his experience with death.

[103]

Cihro was right to fear falling asleep. What awaited him were memories disguised as dreams. There was good, so much good in seeing his father, but there was a steep trade-off in the prelude to Melora’s safe haven.

Cihro had always feared for his life. He’d never been heroic or self-sacrificing or taken unnecessary risks unless his loved ones were in danger. He hid and loosed arrows from the shadows. He killed before his targets even knew he existed, ending conflicts before they could take flight. He never thought he would fear for his life _after_ death.

So many wondered what happened after the end, and he had his answer, but he didn’t know if it was the same for everyone. Were worshipers guaranteed solace with their gods? His father was an earth Ashari and a devout follower of Melora – he was the one who pulled Cihro to safety. He dreaded to think about what that worm-thing with too many teeth would have done if it got close. Was there pain in his not-body? Suffering?

Hell was a place. The Abyss was a place. The Astral Plane – they were all locations people could travel to, dead or alive. But how he traveled – it was weird. The scope of it all made him feel infinitesimal.

Cihro had a unique relationship with death as an assassin. Did everyone he’d ever killed go to the same place?

He didn’t like having even part of the answer. The knowledge – and the experience of it all – was a burden on his soul.


	41. Mark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro has a temporary mark from dying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally in Someone Else's Solid Ground, but I decided to fit it here since it's more relevant to this story.

[104]

“I want a bath,” Cihro groaned. “I need a bath _so bad_.”

He and Talsin stood at the bottom of the stairwell at the Brambleview estate. Talsin had Cihro’s arm slung around his shoulders and a hand on his waist, helping him stand upright to take the weight off his bad foot. He felt stronger today, but in increments, not in leaps and bounds. He could walk, but Talsin persisted even if he refused to bridal carry him a second time for the sake of his arms.

Talsin glared at the stairs with as much reproach as Cihro felt. 

“Living on the third floor is all well and good until you’ve been hurt and need to climb them to reach your quarters,” he said. 

“We can do it,” Cihro said. “We managed last night. Let me grab the railing.”

They did, though Cihro felt like he’d been repeatedly punched in the lungs when they reached the top. Soon after Talsin was drawing him a bath and helping unload his things into his room. Cihro could finally sleep in a _bed_ and be _clean_. He made a mental note to book a hair appointment later in the day. 

Tub full, Cihro sat on the lip and Talsin helped him undress. Kishore had already removed most of the cultist armour and paraphernalia, but his undershirt, pants, and boots remained. Talsin handled him with care without acting like he was made of glass, helping because he wanted to and not because it was required. 

He set aside the shirt and stopped short when he saw Cihro’s bare chest. Cihro tilted his head. He’d seen the scar his mom left behind more than a dozen times.

“What’s wrong?” He glanced down. 

Over his heart were thin black and bruising veins. They reached out like the nursery roots of a tree, not far or deep, the tips expanding and receding in time with his breath. Cihro suddenly felt weak for a different reason. 

He lifted a hand to inspect at the same time Talsin did and their hands intercepted. Cihro gulped as Talsin brushed it aside. His fingers spread over the mark, delicate, and it was tender to the touch. Not painful, but like he’d pinched the skin one too many times. 

They were, vaguely, in the shape of a dragon head.

“I guess it was too much to ask to not get a scar,” he joked, but his voice quaked. “I’ve gotten more for less.”

“Scars fade,” Talsin assured him, looking him in the eye. “Even lasting ones. I know that spell, and it shouldn’t leave a permanent mark, but we’ll keep an eye on it just in case, yeah?” 

Cihro nodded, numb. Talsin cupped his neck, thumb grazing the skin of his jaw.

“I’m just so sick of having a new one every time I see you,” he said. “I know it was funny at first, with the gibbering mouther and all, but now when I look at them I just remember what I was dealing with at the time.” He gestured to the vampire bite and then his chest and its new brand. “My body doesn’t feel like my own.”

“They don’t make me think any less of you,” Talsin said. 

Cihro cracked a lopsided smile. “I was never worried about that.”

Talsin returned the smile, but it hooked in the opposite direction. “I think it would be rude to ask someone _not_ to feel like a stranger in their own body after dying. I think what you’re feeling right now is a result of that, emotionally. I have faith that you’ll feel more like yourself soon. You always bounce back, Cihro - you’re always more resilient than you feel. And it’s alright to not be alright in the meantime.”

Cihro sighed and nodded, relieved. “You’ve been doing an awful lot of taking care of me lately,” he said. “I appreciate it.”

“It’s my pleasure,” Talsin said, puffing out his chest. “Cihro, I only had myself to look after for a hundred and fifty years. It’s a delight to pamper someone else for a change, and someone who could clearly use it. Besides, I hardly trust anyone to do it half as well as me.” He lowered his hand and waved at him, grinning. “Now, get in the water. I second that statement about _needing_ a bath.”


	42. Pleasant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro and Bryn decorate cookies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For promptober 2020.

[105]

Cihro and Talsin returned to the Brambleview Estate early evening, closing the door on a red-orange sky marked with foamy clouds. The sun hastened to set these days and they made the most of every hour of light they could. 

Talsin took their bags and disappeared up the stairs. Cihro inhaled deeply – a pleasant, saccharine smell wafted from the kitchen and he followed it with his nose until he was inside. Bryn and Ada turned in unison, side-by-side at the counter in the midst of cutting shapes into flattened dough. 

"Cihro," Ada chimed with a smile. She waved a rolling pin at him. "Don't think I'll ever mistake you for your brother again."

"Mind a third pair of hands?" he asked. 

"For eating or for helping?" Bryn questioned.

"Helping," Cihro said, then added, "but if I get to eat a few, I won't complain."

Bryn shrugged. "Sure. Maybe grab a chair? If you've been on your feet all day, you should sit."

Cihro felt fine walking in, but as soon as Bryn mentioned sitting, his body sang in agreement. He'd been out making arrangements with Talsin for their ceremony but no matter how much he threw himself into the preparations, he'd still only died a few days prior. He raised his hands with a nod and found a stool to draw up to a side table and plunk his booty in. 

Ada walked over with a tray of baked cookies. "You can help decorate," she said, setting it in front of him. "The last batch is about to go in the oven, so there isn't much left to do, truth be told." 

"I dunno if I have the arm strength to mix batter anyway," Cihro joked. Ada flexed an arm at him with her rolled up sleeves and a wink, then set down a tube of red sprinkles and passed him a pastry bag full of white icing. The cookies themselves were gingerbread, some in the shape of people, some trees, some candy-canes, boxes that were presents, and some snowflakes. Some were even shaped like Westruun’s symbol, white irises.

"I dunno if you should trust me with decorations, either," Cihro said, but got to business. They probably had enough cookies to feed the entirety of the Swords and Shields, and not knowing whose hands they would end up in, he could keep his designs tame. Though, if he drew at least _one_ dick, he was convinced he'd get to keep it and eat it. 

It also occurred to him he could just pocket a few for him and Talsin, but he thought better of invoking Ada and Bryn’s ire. 

Eventually Bryn stepped up beside him to join in with green sprinkles and red icing. Cihro felt content in their silent diligence – it was cathartic. He wasn't doing much in the grand scheme of making cookies, but even the smallest part of it helped him see why Bryn took to baking when he was stressed. It gave him a similar sense of peace when he whittled wood and the added satisfaction that came with improving and sharing the result with others.

There was a similarity between them he didn’t see before. He knew exactly where Bryn’s mind was when they were in Cinder – his mind had been in the exact same place in the underdark when rescuing Talsin. And he was glad to see Bryn and Gael reunited, even if there were some hitches. Nobody experienced what they did and came out unchanged.

His connection with Bryn was always felt more than said and he suspected that would remain true moving forward. He smiled at Bryn. To his amazement, he smiled back.


	43. Flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro takes his new winged boots for a spin.

[106]

Cihro recognized the boots that tumbled into his lap. A week ago they were collecting dust in the Margrave’s vault, but now they were polished and _his_. He cycled through shock, disbelief, and then ended on elation over his new gift. He shook Dayereth by the shoulders and hugged him tight.

He attuned to them at once and dashed up the stairs to find one of the hatches that lead to the roof. Talsin shadowed him and popped out in time to snatch his wrist as Cihro’s foot slid against a panel.

“Be careful, there’s ice,” he warned. His free hand pulled his jacket tighter as the wind whipped, snow still on its breath. “Now I’m all for taking calculated risks, but are you sure you should be jumping off a roof to test them out and not, I don’t know, taking off from the ground?”

“I've jumped off plenty of roofs without winged boots and I've fallen out of trees,” Cihro argued. “If they don’t work, I’ll be fine.”

Kishore and Dayereth emerged from the ground floor, spotted them, and stood where they could watch.

Talsin released his wrist as Cihro found his footing and the pair of them approached the roof’s eave. The blanket where they stargazed together wasn’t far – Cihro made a note to bring it in before it froze over, too, if it hadn’t already.

“I can’t say I jumped off any buildings when I first learned how to fly,” Talsin said, and with a familiar flutter of his fingers with lilac sparkles, he floated off his feet. He drifted away from the roof and settled several feet in front of Cihro. “Just in case.”

“I guess she’s my second just in case,” Cihro said, pointing to Kishore. “Or ours, because if you catch me, you’re probably going down with me.”

Talsin shrugged and grinned. “Have a little more faith, C.”

“That’s what this is,” Cihro said, gesturing to his feet. “And I've jumped off an airship with less.”

When he attuned to the boots they blended into his own with nothing but the glittering outline of wings on the back, gold and white like an angel. He tapped each toe on the roof and with a thought, the wings unfurled from his heels.

He sprung off. He didn’t fall, but he didn’t exactly fly, either – he wobbled mid-air like a skater on ice for the first time. Talsin boxed his arms and jerked forward like he’d catch him but Cihro dipped below him and then streaked up behind. The boots reacted to his thoughts, wanted to work with him, it was just a matter of reacting in time with practise.

He was nothing if not a quick learner, though. Within a few short minutes he and Talsin flew circles around each other, figure-eights and flips and rolls and grabbing onto each other’s hands and spinning. Talsin faux carried him bridal style again, but Cihro was weightless and free. They laughed, cheeks and noses ruddy from the cold.

“Damn,” he heard from below, in Day’s voice. “I was hoping he’d do a flip and fall.”

He heard the unmistakable sound of Kishore shoving his hat over his face, and they all returned inside.


	44. Memory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro's only memory of the Feywild is from dying.

[108]

As the circling, billowing wind came to rest and the vibrant plane of the Feywild shifted into focus, Cihro’s breath left him in a great swoop and his heart stumbled.

It wasn’t identical to the area he was before. Where he’d arrived was somehow more colourful, more varied in appearance. Here, the leaves on the trees and their trunks were uniform, even if they were blue barked and pink-leaved. His dad occupied a place where every bush and blade of grass had its own colour.

For one brief, excruciating second, he was paralyzed with the fear that he’d died again. The only time he was here was in the afterlife and it was the only reason he had a memory of the Feywild at all. He half expected to turn around and see his father with a patient smile, awaiting his return. His breath shuddered on an inhale, like he’d throttled his own windpipe.

Kishore’s hand caught his shoulder and he started. She wore a look of concern, one she often did when she noticed what everyone else didn’t. He shot her a nod and smile and composed himself with a ruffle of his shoulders. He was here for their mother, not his father, and Cihro was alive as the day he was born.


	45. Illusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro and Day scry on their mother.

[113]

Chandrelle’s visage flickered above Day’s open palm. 

A fissure split his chest. Cihro remembered her sporting short cropped hair and more of a humanoid face. In the copy she looked ethereal, dark hair tumbling past the shoulders in choppy waves. Her clothes were smooth, colourful, and gilded. Her eyes, a duel between gold and green, pierced more than ever, like she could cut through the minor illusion and straight into his heart. Like all things from the Feywild, she was just _more_.

His arm twitched towards it. She wasn’t real, just a replica of what Day saw in his scrying spell, but either this Chandrelle was the truest version of her there was or the mother he’d known was. Without standing in front of her and speaking face to face, there was no way to know. He resisted last minute, his arm falling to his side.

He finished off the bottle of wine with Day before he fled for the crow’s nest again. Salty winds battered him on the flight up. It protected him in battle – maybe it could protect him from this.

He landed without a sound, laid his back low against the mast, and propped his feet up on the railing. He slipped out his flask and quaffed that as well, finding some comfort in the creaking wood and the crash of water. Through inebriation or the ocean beneath the Queen’s Revenge, the world gently rocked him.

It wasn’t that he disbelieved that Chandrelle could be the granddaughter of Queen Titania, but he hadn’t processed it. He had his eyes fixed ahead and lost everything in his peripheral. Day’s illusion confronted him about what he was scared to address. Everything in the Feywild was a fairy-tale turned real, it shouldn’t have surprised him that his mother was another. Every time he thought he knew her, he didn’t.

It made him rethink how she reacted to him drifting away when they moved to Emon. She was so much older than he could comprehend and she still didn’t have the capacity to learn what he needed and how best to support him. Somehow her first daughter wasn’t enough to prepare her for her first son.

He still felt guilty for breaking ties and he suspected that feeling would never change, but if she left Theotae – then her not providing the emotional support he needed as a teen was another form of abandonment. Right?

This all came before he wanted to consider that the Zephir he saw was a fake, an actor from the theatre toying with his vulnerability.

Cihro had become so inured to pain and trauma both by the proximity to the others and by his own doing. Time and time again it felt like all the roads to finding the truth, and subsequently peace, punished him for trying. He had every opportunity to turn around and go back, to do what was easy – but he hadn’t. And now he didn’t know if he could even if he wanted to. 

Day said that no matter how their adventure panned out, they still had each other, but even that felt like fiction. Life proved it was more than willing to rip them apart through death.

He capped his flask and dug his palms into his eyes, his gloves growing damp with tears.


	46. Giant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group take on a leviathan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For promptober 2020.

[114]

 _The Queen's Revenge_ , magnificent and sturdy, rocked like a paper boat blown by a gust of wind when the leviathan lurched off its side. Cihro'd grown into his sea legs on the journey over and he still nearly lost his balance, bumping into the mast before catching his free hand on the crow's nest railing.

It vanished under the agitated surface of the ocean. For one brief, euphoric second Cihro thought it was retreating, but that thought was doused when the thing swirled underwater, a whirlpool, then surged upwards. The sea rose along with it, then kept rising and rising until it formed an impossibly giant cerulean wall, hundreds of feet tall and half as thick racing towards them while simultaneously pulling the ship towards it. 

Anytime Cihro thought he’d faced the largest beast he ever could, the world laughed and one-upped itself. 

Its shadow fell over the ship, blocking out the sun, and Cihro staggered back. Any pirates still alive below bellowed and scattered. He could breathe underwater via magic, but it still felt like he would choke on it. It was just so _much_. No adjusting, no getting his feet wet, just thrown right in. No escape.

In the seconds before, he thought it poetic. The tidal wave felt and looked like the physical embodiment of their problems – insurmountable, usually fatal. 

He threw his arms around the rail, latching them together like a chain link with his bow and squeezing his eyes shut. All he could do was hold on; so he tried.


	47. Father

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro's father is alive.

[117] 

Cihro had no single feeling or word to describe how it felt to see his father standing outside the Theatre. He knew he wasn’t a wordsmith, but he had a decent grasp on his emotions and he’d improved at communicating them. He’d seen him recently, but Cihro was dead, and things got weird yet explicable in the afterlife. This was something else altogether. 

It wasn’t just that he was alive – he hadn’t aged a day. He waltzed up to the group in clothes that weren’t his own to pass out schedules, looked straight at him, and didn’t recognize him. He didn’t even realize that they looked similar. For Cihro, it was akin to looking in a mirror. Same nose, same eyes, same jaw, but raven black spirals of hair draped past his face and rounded ears. 

His spark was missing. His eyes were the same colour, thick and syrupy, but they were tainted with magic. This man was so far gone that all he could see and hear and live and breathe was the Theatre and his sole purpose was spreading its influence. 

Day took over, stalling Zephir, and Cihro barely heard a word, muffled and plugged up, trapped in his nameless deluge of emotions. He wanted to grab this man by the arms and shout that he was his dad and he saw the rocks - how could he be alive after Cihro spent most of his life grieving him? He would never get those years or sorrow back. 

All of their revelations before – their mother being archfey, Queen Titania being their great-grandmother, Theotae’s intentions – they were cakewalks compared to facing that his father was alive, younger than him, and didn’t seem to know him anymore. In essence, he _was_ a different person, but he was still his son.


	48. Petrichor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro hugs his dad.

[119]

“Can I hug you?” Cihro rushed to ask. He’d wanted to ever since Euripides hit the stage with a gaping, halberd-shaped hole in his middle. “Is that okay?”

His dad’s eyes lit up and he nodded with eager bobs of his head. Cihro rushed forward and his dad met him halfway, collecting him in his arms with a sturdy palm harbouring the side of his head.

A child-like comfort swept through him – he was all of ten again, even if he nearly matched his dad in height now. Zephir managed to engulf him despite it, big with personality and affection. It wasn’t bittersweet like their last reunion; he didn’t have to wonder how many times he’d have to say goodbye or if he’d ever have the chance to embrace him again. There would be more hugs, more talks, more bonding.

His time spent grieving wasn’t wasted, he thought. Even if his mother had been honest, his heart would’ve needed some other sort of consolation.

A rush of long-buried memories accompanied the hug. Warm afternoons baking on the rocks, cool nights huddled in furs reading stories. When he died, his senses were muted, and he’d only realized when he woke up gasping. Smells of fresh, wet clay and petrichor and worn-in leather fanned over him. Bad memories surfaced, too, of dry, heavy boulders burying a body, of visiting a grave, and his grip reflexively tightened. His dad’s hold squeezed in response, an echo, a reply to his call. 

Not dead, not dead, not dead. _Alive._


	49. Permanence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro and his dad compare tattoos.

[125]

When Cihro heard a tapping at his window, he seized up, arms shoved into his wardrobe up to the elbows. He lived on the third floor of the Brambleview estate – any knock that didn’t come from the door was a cause for concern, given he didn’t have a balcony. Was it Sean? He looked. A blue jay criss-crossed outside. Alarm oozed out of him – of course, Sean would’ve just crept up on him.

He walked to the window. It was the one to the left of his bed, nearly spanning a third of the wall and reaching high towards the ceiling. At first he thought the blue jay flew into it, but the sound wasn’t the deep, full-body thud of a soft creature hitting glass, but the high-pitched rapping of a hard object. It hadn’t flown off, either, but flapped just outside. It tapped again with its beak. 

Curiosity got the better of him and he slid it open. He didn’t think it wise to let a bird loose indoors, but he’d made far stupider decisions with far more risk. The blue jay flit past and swelled into the shape of his dad, stumbling once before straightening.

“Oh,” Cihro said. Duh. He closed the window on the blustery day while his dad tucked his hair behind his ears. “Why didn’t you take the stairs?”

“Faster,” his dad said, giving a wild grin. He turned to cast his gaze about, drinking in each piece of furniture and decoration, and let out a low whistle. “You really live in here?”

“So long as Aritian doesn’t wanna kill me,” Cihro said. “It’s Talsin’s room and mine, yeah.”

“Why would Aritian wanna kill you?”

“Long story.”

His dad hung his coat by the door, then wandered as Cihro returned to organizing clothes. His presence saturated the room, even when he elected not to speak – his room was usually reserved for his brother, his husband, and Kishore. Elspeth dropped in once or twice, but there weren’t a lot of people he liked or trusted in his space.

He hoped his dad didn’t go poking his nose too far and end up stumbling across Clasp or other unsavory stuff, but he didn’t snoop much, keeping his hands to his sides and fingers off of lids. Cihro guessed he could hide better than his dad could search, anyway. Zephir stopped to admire a small hanger of earrings Cihro put atop his vanity, then joined him by the wardrobe as Cihro folded its doors closed.

Zephir’s eyes landed on him like he was seeing him for the first time again, wide and observant. Cihro opened his mouth to ask, but his dad sidled up beside him and held his shoulder against his, comparing. Both their arms were bare – Cihro had doffed his cloak and armour earlier. His dad was leaner, less stocky, but that wasn’t what held his attention – the tattoos on his dad’s forearms bore a resemblance to the thin bands wrapped around Cihro’s biceps. He closed his mouth.

“You get those for me?” Zephir asked, voice as a feather.

Cihro offered a sheepish grin. “No, actually. I got them because I thought they looked cool. Happy coincidence.” He extended his right forearm, brandishing its bouquet of thin-lined flowers bracketed between two more bars of black ink. “This one I did, though.”

His dad took the back of his wrist and leaned in for a closer look. He rolled the arm over, smiling, running a thumb along the muscles on the inside of his arm. Cihro wondered if the wet gleam in his eye was a trick of the light.

“They’re beautiful,” he admired.

“Thanks. The ones on my biceps came first, this was second.” He swallowed, his past encumbering him, suddenly. He’d always been vulnerable on the subject of his dad, so it was a fresh, intense capsule of emotions to bask in his company, filling him in on everything he missed that made up the bulk of Cihro’s life. “The first mark on my body was a brand.”

His dad looked up sharply. Cihro slipped his arm from him to rub a hand over his neck. “I dunno how much crime made its way to Terrah, but I’m part of the Clasp. Joining was my choice, but their brand is mandatory.”

Questions swam in Zephir’s eyes, but he didn’t ask them, waiting. Cihro refused to repeat the past and hide secrets from him like he did his mom, but he didn’t expect the Clasp to pop up over tattoos, of all topics.

“I got tattoos as soon as I was an adult,” Cihro explained, massaging a thumb over the ball of his wrist, “to pick something for myself.”

“You were branded as a child?” his dad asked, brows casting a shadow across his face.

Cihro nodded. “Yeah. I was actually old for when I joined – fourteen, I think? They love their kids.”

“Cihro,” his dad cautioned.

“It’s fine,” he said, and nearly winced. Habit. It wasn’t fine. “I’m not used to having any kind of permanence? The Clasp has been the most permanent thing in my life, so Talsin was an anomaly. Even this house thing is kinda new to me – I feel like I’m just waiting for Aritian to kick me out.”

He shook his head and shrugged, gaze fleeing to one side. “I feel like I’m waiting for you to be taken away again.”

Zephir’s hands landed on his shoulders, firm and warm. If the earth had an embrace that wasn’t bludgeoning and death, it was his dad’s. “If I am, know it was never my choice.” Cihro looked up. His dad gave another grin. “By the Wildmother’s grace, I will go down fighting. I think I’m a little more on guard for the weird, now, anyway.”

“I know. Me too. Still nice to hear it, though.”

Zephir mirrored his nod and tugged him into a squeezing hug. “Feels good to say it, too.”

Cihro wrapped his arms around him. Their conversation about the Clasp wasn’t over, but it was too much history to cover for the moment – it was a story that demanded dedicated time, and Cihro already had an idea for when and where that wasn’t the estate.

“I have others,” he said. “You wanna see? We can do a little tattoo tour.”

His dad broke out of the hug, beaming. “Yeah, please! Nothing lewd, though, right, son?”

“No, dad.”

That was how he spent the rest of the afternoon – sharing tattoos, stories, and accepting that family was building itself a home around him. 


	50. Eye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro comes home to a symbol under his pillow.

[125]

Cihro tossed himself onto his bed, bouncing once before settling. It was _divine_ – nothing beat first lying on it after sleeping on snow, ice, rock, and literally dying, but he never took it for granted after any travelling.

He rolled to Talsin’s side, then back to his own, stretching and sliding his arms under his pillows, halting when his hand brushed over the texture of paper. 

He flipped onto his belly and fished it out, alarm rattling his bones. Drawn in delicate gold lines on a small, square sheet of parchment was an open eye. Thin lines circled the bottom of it, reaching towards the edges of the page – decorative or tears or blood, maybe. He turned it over. Blank. His heart settled.

Months ago, or over a year by the material plane’s time, he would’ve been besotted with dread. He didn’t think it was a hit on him – Hone probably would’ve ignored his missive if it was. This wasn’t part of any Clasp ritual he was aware of, and any forewarning to an assassin was foolish unless they were Sean or had the skill to back it up. 

No, the drawing didn’t elicit fear – it only made him curious.


	51. Lead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro speaks with Talsin about his new rank with the Clasp.

[125]

Cihro swung open the door to his room with enough fanfare to make Talsin proud. He looked up from across the room, seated in an armchair by the fire with a book in his lap, and smiled. 

Cihro closed the door, hung his coat, and walked to meet him. His hand unconsciously drifted to his pocket with the drawing, smoothing it over. He’d wear it down at the rate he was going, which made him wonder – was his position only relevant so long as he had proof of his rank, or did he hold onto his power through duty? Maybe it was prudent to make a copy.

“You look thoughtful,” Talsin remarked, folding his book closed and setting it on a side table. He patted the arm of the chair and bounced so his knees faced it, crossing one long leg over the other. “Come sit; how was the meeting? Is the Underwalk Ward still as ghastly as ever?” 

Cihro unpocketed the sheet and hopped onto the sofa’s arm, leaning onto Talsin’s side. “Hone knew what the symbol meant after all,” he said. 

“I wait with bated breath.”

Cihro continued to fiddle with the page. “Remember that inner circle Sean mentioned? Turns out it was this. They call themselves ‘The Eyes.’ When he left this behind, that’s how he brought me in. She thinks it was a final token from him.”

Talsin’s lips twisted in a way they did whenever Sean came into conversation, like speaking his name was biting into a lemon, and he stared at the drawing with an impressive amount of disdain. 

“I knew nothing he was doing could be good. What does this mean for you?”

“That’s something I wanted to talk to you about, actually. I meant to earlier, but I didn’t wanna spoil our plans last week, and I didn’t expect this.” He turned, one leg falling over the armrest and into the seat cushion alongside Talsin’s. “I know you have no love for the Clasp, and I don’t either, but the more time goes on the more I think it might be easier to work with them.”

Talsin’s eyes hardened at the paper, but softened when they rose to meet his gaze, inviting him to continue. Cihro sighed, bracing more of his weight into his shoulder.

“By that I mean taking on more of a leadership role with them,” he elaborated. “I feel like it’d be easier than leaving and being on the run for the rest of my life. You know what that’s like.”

“It’s true,” Talsin admitted. “It’s part of why thinking of ways to extract you have been difficult. I don’t want that life for you, or for your brother.”

“Yeah. I don’t want targets on anyone else, either. If I take a position of power, I think I’ll be more comfortable.”

Talsin rested a hand on his knee. “I’m uneasy, I won’t lie,” he said softly, brushing a thumb over his pants. “The Clasp make me uneasy. My concern is it will get you killed. However, if it’s what you want to do, then I’ll support you. If anyone can improve the Clasp, it’s you.” 

Cihro smiled. “I don’t think this means I can never leave – in a weird way I think I have more of a chance because of it. You know Assum, right – he works with the Clasp without being beholden to them. He’s a decent role model, I think.”

“Better than Sean.” Talsin shook his head. “I don’t like that – you’ve effectively taken over Sean’s job. It doesn’t sit right with me.”

Cihro grimaced. “I hadn’t thought about it like that before. Yeah, I don’t like that – but I don’t wanna lead by fear, like he did.”

“You may be feared regardless.” Talsin cracked a wry grin. “And while I know you don’t relish the thought, you have every reason to be feared. You’ve come into your own. I would argue you’re nearly equals with Sean, at least as far as skill is concerned – we all know you’re leagues above him in character.” He gestured to the drawing. “That seems proof of that.”

Cihro lowered his gaze. He’d already had a lot to consider after leaving the Underwalk, and Talsin was feeding him a buffet. But that was his nature, giving him perspective, and Cihro cared about his feelings on the matter.

“I never thought I’d take on a leadership role,” Cihro said. “I thought I was fated to be at the bottom of the food chain my whole life.”

“Cihro, when I left the underdark and sought to make the world a better place to live in, I never thought I’d be keeping a portal closed to keep Lolth locked out,” Talsin said, giving a pat of his knee. “And that, quite literally, was fate. So maybe this is that as well, and we make the most of fate that we can.”

“Thanks. I appreciate your insight.”

“I should hope so; you married me. My insight is unparalleled.”

Cihro grinned and swept in to kiss him on the cheek. When he withdrew, Talsin’s smile faltered and slipped away, face dreary.

“What is it?” Cihro asked.

“There’s something Venu told me that I keep thinking of. You were asleep, but she told me not to make the mistake of letting you walk where I can’t follow.”

Cihro frowned and laid a hand over the one on his leg. “I’m sorry to worry you.”

“You’re going to worry me regardless of what you do.”

“You can follow me anywhere. Just turn invisible.”

Talsin laughed, and his shoulders relaxed, free of the fetters of rising worry, at least for the moment. Cihro savoured the sound – it was the laugh of someone who hadn’t thought of the obvious, and that was so like Talsin, wasn’t it. He weaved their fingers together, pulling him closer by cradling their hands to his chest.

“I still wanna join the Sigillum Order one day,” he said. “Even if they just have me running around like a page or mopping the floors.”

“You’d look very dashing as an errand boy,” Talsin joshed. 

“Glad you agree.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Talsin's line about Venu is a reference to [this piece](https://solfell.tumblr.com/post/622655818294280192/vi).


	52. Sharpshooter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro asks his mother to teach him how to be a better shot.

[125] 

Brisk, winter air accompanied Cihro on his morning run, cutting into his lungs and rousing every inch of him. He welcomed it, even if he preferred summer; the frozen reality woke him up from the dreamlike humidity of the Feywild. It solidified his footing on the material plane, reminded him that he was _home_.

The Feywild had a tundra of its own, ruled by the ornery Frost Prince, but they’d never been, and probably for the best. Cihro had no desire to meet anymore of his mom’s exes.

When he left, the estate rested save for the guards on patrol and the staff waking fires from their slumber. When he returned, bathed, and dressed, the manor bustled with life, with breakfast laid out on dining tables and rooms suffused with warmth and voices. He nabbed half a buttered bagel and braved the outdoors again, the training grounds his destination. His mother was already there, alone, a phantom.

He hopped the fence with the aid of his winged boots and landed with a light crunch of snow. She turned, her bow hand flexing around the grip.

“Cihro,” she said as way of greeting.

“Morning.”

She glanced over his shoulder, where he came. “You’re alone this time. I can leave, if you like.”

He waved a hand, shrugging Venenum from his back. “It’s fine. I can’t expect to hog the training grounds for myself.”

“If you’re sure.”

“You don’t sound so sure.”

A tepid smile pulled her lips. “I’d like to stay.”

“Then stay.”

She resumed practise, and Cihro initiated his. Regret trickled in, but not for the reason he thought – anyone with eyes could see she was the better shot, and he experienced it firsthand from fighting her even if her arrows sunk into his brother instead of him. Standing beside her, it became even more apparent.

He wasn’t prone to jealousy, so it wasn’t that. He didn’t have the strength for a longbow. He was skilled in different ways, his methods unethical; they weren’t skills a mother should’ve been proud of. Was it guilt? Did being in her company more than necessary allay his frustration or prolong it?

He’d worked so hard to make peace with himself and his line of work; there was no reason to believe his mother disapproved when she hadn’t made a peep about his strengths and weaknesses. 

She’d said she was proud of him and Day for rescuing their family. His doubt of her and all the reasons that contributed to it tried to convince him otherwise, but he needed to believe her.

“You’re a good marksman,” she remarked, catching him unaware.

“Oh. Thanks. You are, too. Better than me.”

“I was an Emerald Archer,” she said, not denying it. “That’s the thing of elves – we have more time than most to hone our skills.”

Cihro half-shrugged. “I was forced to get better through necessity. If I can reliably hit stuff then our chances of survival are better.”

She ceased firing arrows. “It seems like a lot of what you do comes down to survival.”

 _No thanks to you_ , Cihro’s brain chimed in, but he shushed his antagonistic inner self. “Sad but true.” He sighed, shifted his weight, then said, “If you wanna help improve our chances, you could teach me some tricks.”

She blinked, looked to his target, then back to him. She wet her lips. “You’re right. Of course. Let me—show me how you loose, from the top.”

She watched him, then guided him. His form was accurate for his type of bow, so she nudged him with minor adjustments and tips – how to get more distance out of his arrows, how to have them strike harder, deeper, and more piercing, even through cover. She was patient.

She patted his shoulder once he ate his way through two-thirds of his stock. Her hand froze on the rise, though, before she retreated and tucked it against her side.

“You’ll need a bit more practise, but you’re a quick learner,” she said. “You were when you were little, too.”

“When you taught me to swordfight?”

“Yes.” Her features tumbled into a face of grief. “It’s…regrettable,” she said, voice more delicate than the white crystalline air enveloping her words. “I've become so skilled with the bow but all it took was taking over my mind to turn me against my children. Perhaps that’s what I should be strengthening instead.”

“Hey. It’s not your fault.” Cihro rotated to look her head-on. “His magic was powerful – it had us all thrown for a loop. You know how resilient dad’s will is, and he was his thrall, too.”

“You’re not cross with me for it?”

“Not exactly. I would’ve been if Day or any of my friends died, but I’m mad about the things that were in your control, like why our dads were there in the first place and how they didn’t know. The entire situation existed because of what you did, but you’ve owned up to it.” He started towards the target to retrieve his ammunition. “We don’t have to keep talking about it.”

She tailed him, looping her bow over her arm. “But it’s good to.”

“Yeah, it’s good to. I think, years ago, I wouldn’t have, but I've changed.”

“I’m sorry I missed it.”

He began prying arrows from the target, a round bale with a flat end painted in rings. Some were broken, others embedded up to their fletching, but most were salvageable – he was impressed he managed to split a few. His mother helped, handing them over for him to tuck back into their quiver.

“I like Talsin, by the way,” she added. “He’s clever. I can see why you two are a match.”

Cihro only smiled. There was hope for them yet.


	53. Curfew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cihro throws himself into his new work.

[125]

Westruun’s curfew meant nothing to Cihro. He broke it regularly, slipping under – and sometimes over, by rooftop – the noses of the guards. He stealthed with a confidence he’d never had before, cloaked by his elven hood and years of refining his footwork. But the hours between dusk and dawn were long in winter; he lost track of time when nightfall arrived, even inside the manor.

The Clasp reports never seemed to end. He worried with every new page he read his brain deposited an old one out back without him realizing – forgetting one name to remember another. But there was an end, and he traipsed forward. Re-reading was an option. Notes were an option.

Talsin startled him with a hand sliding down his arm. It traveled to the parchment and gently lowered it to the desk.

“Come to bed,” he whispered, fingers closing over his hand. “It’ll be there in the morning. You’re not a full-blooded elf; you need to rest.”

Cihro blinked, his vision blurred at the edges, and knuckled his eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, you’re right.”


End file.
